The Gifted League
by SuperSonic21
Summary: Second story in the Silver!Verse series. Sequel to 'A Study In Silver' . When Sherlock's offered a case by a high-ranking lawyer that gives way to a murder investigation, John doesn't foresee that he could be the one being targeted.
1. Prologue

_**AN: WAIT! Have you read 'A Study In Silver'? If not, GO AND READ IT, because it's the first instalment of this series! I also recommend 'Please Respond', which is a sort of prequel to the series, set in 2006. It's not essential to read it, but whatever . . . ;D**_

_Surprise! It's the prologue to my sequel to 'A Study In Silver'. I'm full of birthday cheer, so I'm letting you have this bit earlier than promised. Look out for updates in the new year! - B. _

_p.s: I don't get a lot of reviews - it would be nice if you could drop me a line to say what you thought after the forthcoming chapters! Constructive criticism welcome. Thanks a lot x_

_Also, I ALWAYS forget to do this . . . _

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not own BBC Sherlock, nor any of the characters. I hope you read that because I won't remember to do it again, probably. You'ce had your fill. :)**_

_**Rated T for language, dark themes, violence, blah blah blah. Glad that's out of the way, too! **_

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><p>"Just tea for me, thanks,"<p>

Blood spurted in pulses, ever quickening with his frantic heartbeat. Agony tended to do that to the number of beats per minute his cardiac muscle racked up. The sheer amount of it never failed to shock him: on the work surface, on the floor, on the _mugs_ . . .

Sherlock sighed, twitching with the strain of inaction. His feet were up on the arm of the sofa, knocking together in an absent fidget, as he lay sprawled in what looked like an exact, accurate tableau of boredom. His fingers were knotted on his chest, and he blew out his cheeks, following the lines in the ceiling's patterns. It was difficult to stave off boredom at the best of times, but John wasn't exactly helping. He wasn't being overly chatty this morning, if the utter silence from the kitchen was anything to go by.

He couldn't read his flatmate's mind, either. Since gaining his friend, he'd made a vow to stick to the motto he'd set himself:  
><em>Conversation is for friends<em>. _Telepathy is for others._  
>Well, it only applied to John, seeing as John was his only friend. Everyone else was, to him, fair game. He would still talk to John in his head if he needed to say something that he didn't want others to hear, but he wouldn't pry into particulars that weren't already being freely shared.<p>

He wasn't sure what John would make of this, but he was too proud to admit that he'd made an altruistic decision - it would be the _death_ of his reputation. Besides: it would be interesting to see how the constant fear of having his mind read altered John's behaviour. Maybe after a while he could tell who knew about his powers from their behaviour around them by equating it to John's right now.  
><em>You've got yourself a fan, Mr. Holmes.<em>

The sort of sickening regret that came as an afterthought to grievous accidental injury swept over him in waves, almost bodily grabbing him and seeping deep in through his pores as an adrenaline-fuelled rush of cold. He held his wrist with his right hand, and plunged it into the sink to prevent further spillage. It seemed gruesome that he should care about the cleaning up, as he stared at his own red-tinted expression on the back of the knife. Crimson spurted at a sickeningly low velocity all over the stainless steel, every time causing him to wince, as if the hugely dehabilitating pain he was already experiencing wasn't enough.

It would be a few minutes yet . . . Maybe it would go unnoticed . . . ?

"_Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows _. . . Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_, Volume Two, Chapter One, line one. That should have been deleted, I suppose. But with all of the questions I get about the case it concerned, it's probably best to keep it stored . . ."

There was a long pause. No spluttering surprise came as a result of Sherlock's sudden literary outburst, nor its unusual nature. Clearly John was too occupied with unloading the dishwasher, he supposed.

"Biscuits would be nice, too," Sherlock continued, adding to his monologue, "I could have a case at any moment, you know . . . No _chatter_ as of yet, but there's always _something_ . . ."  
>Chatter. It was a normal-people-friendly code to refer to thoughts that Sherlock could hear – sometimes they could come from all the way across London if he was desperate for crimes to solve, and he really focussed solely on searching. If that didn't work, he'd use nicotine patches – or something stronger, in days gone by – to broaden his range.<p>

Obviously, though, when he 'heard' a crime being committed, he'd learnt to begin trying to solve the case before the police came to get him, but only in the comfort of _his own head_. If he turned up at the scene of a crime before the police did, even he couldn't convince them that he wasn't hiding _something_. More than once, of course, he _had_ been accused of being the killer. It was a difficult charge to shake, but he'd always managed – _so far_.

Trust the criminals of London to abstain from committing any crime he could possibly have some _fun_ solving at in these desolate, useless days of endless waiting.

He leapt up, irritably throwing himself into the chair next to the desk, and opening John's laptop up. When he thought of the injustice of having to hide the thing he was best at, it always put him in a bad mood. This was currently the case, worsening his already dire temper, on top of the impatience he couldn't abide at having no real way to apply himself. No minds to read; no cases to solve. _Bored_.

He checked his email.

He checked the bleeding index finger: half-amputated, hanging on by about a quarter of the fibres. It would stop bleeding of course, though not soon, and blood loss was a definite issue. Even _he _got faint from blood loss sometimes, it was only _human_ . . . Proof if it was needed that he was human, after all, perhaps.

He heard his flatmate get up, and then slump himself into the chair by the desk. He wanted to call out in protest, as he heard the sleuth typing on his laptop, clearly hacking it as he stood powerless at the sink; he couldn't possibly accost the detective, without his voice sounding weak with pain. If he opened his mouth; if he stopped gritting his teeth for just one moment, he'd groan and Sherlock would know something was up. Frankly, it was a bloody miracle he hadn't had his mind read already.

The dishwasher. He's been unloading the dishwasher, when he'd been confronted with a knife draw with _a jar of human eyes_ in it. That was all it had taken: the knife he'd been going to replace into the draw had jerked as a natural reflex, trapping his index finger between it and the kitchen work surface .

Seemingly of its own accord, the knife had hacked not quite all the way through his flesh. Biting back a sigh, John realised it would only be _proper_ to finish the job. He'd learnt that it was better to just cut off seriously damaged fingers rather than continue in the hope they'd heal by themselves: a few times, he'd had to wait several days, with it just hanging off by a few fibres or a piece of skin, for it to heal. If he got rid of it totally – while it would hurt much, much more – he wouldn't have to go around explaining why his finger was still hanging on by a thread, and why he hadn't gone to A&E.

So, he took the already scarlet knife up in his clumsy right hand, and contorted his face as he pressed his left palm flat to the bottom of the sink. He tried not to think and not to breathe as he slammed it down on the already extremely deep cut, driving the blade down with sudden, brutal force.

He couldn't stop himself; he couldn't contain the curse that slipped out from between his gritted teeth, and through traitorous lips.

"John?" A low voice asked, sounding curious. His telepathy lapsed from its scan for interesting crime: after all, it appeared there was something interesting going on in the flat.

He hauled himself up, and strode, intrigued, across the room towards the kitchen. His arms he held at his side and his fingers he bent like question marks, as they took a hold of the curtain, and pulled it back with rare curiosity.

He was confronted with John abruptly turning to him with a forcefully blank facial expression: lying or at least concealing the truth was not his forte. He mumbled that nothing was happening, though Sherlock hadn't asked. Did it even count as lying if you were _this bad_ at it?

He was clearly trying to hide something in his hands from his flatmate; he was standing at the sink, which was the perfect place to conceal something messy. What if he'd broken one of Sherlock's jars? What if he was trying to hide his guilt by hiding the wrecked experiment in question?

However, the edge to the air indicated blood: the tang of metal and salt was enough for him to pick up on it. He caught on, and his eyes widened, his mouth even falling slightly agape in a dumb, almost caricature depiction of surprise.

"What did you do?" Sherlock hissed, suddenly urgent, dashing up to John and easily peering over his shoulder.  
>"No! Don't-!"John protested. But it was too late: Sherlock's bright eyes were fixed on the gory carnage in the sink. "-Look . . ." John finished lamely.<p>

He watched closely the sleuth's reaction. He seemed shocked, but there was something else in his glassy, pale silver eyes that he couldn't identify:  
>"Oh, God – you're not one of <em>those<em>, are you? Does blood freak you out?"  
>"John," Sherlock said, drawing his eyes with great strength away from the four-fingered left hand in the sink to look the doctor in the eye, "That is probably the stupidest thing I have ever heard you say. I am a consulting detective. I deal in brutal crime and serial killers, and you think I'm scared of blood? A lost finger at the bottom of my sink? I've had fingers in the sink before - Granted, this particular situation is a little out of the realms of my experience, but . . . I'm extremely willing to learn, if only you'll teach me . . ."<p>

His body was pressed up against John, as he muscled in to have as good a look as he could at the still blood-spurting hand. However, he was lightly holding John's shoulder, stroking it in a way that John thought maybe, _just maybe, _was supposed to be comforting. He was clearly in pain: he held himself awkwardly, uncomfortably, and was rigid and still, lest the pain increase.

"No, no – relax, obviously. The tenser you are, the more it hurts. I'm surprised you haven't discovered that by now, with all your experience . . ." Sherlock mumbled in a low whisper. He continued, "You've made a mess, though. Mrs. Hudson _would_ be shocked . . ." He smirked. "I demand a forfeit for wrecking the kitchen-"  
>"What sort of forfeit . . . ?" John asked warily, twisting round so he didn't have to stand with his hands around his back. Sherlock was perpetually in contact with him, bent over to get a better look at his hand. John was slightly fearful as to what one of Sherlock's forfeits might include, especially with the way he was being stared at and the constant low whispering.<br>"Oh, let's say – a few beakers of your blood? . . . And _maybe _the old finger – unless you're going to reattach it? I'm not sure how it works . . . Do you have to – what I mean to say is, must you grow a new one, or could you possibly-?"  
>"Yes, I grow a new one - and no, no! You cannot have the old one! That's sick! You can't - you can't just collect bits of me that I cut off by accident, that's – that's just-"<br>"You don't understand. If I collect a sample of your cells, I can compare it to my own! I'll compare the blood, too!  
>"Don't you see? As a medical man, if not as the owner of the blood - with cells from <em>normal <em>people collected from Bart's morgue, and my own, and yours to make sure mine's standard for people _like us_-"  
>"You'll be able to identify cellular discrepancies between the normal people and, um . . . <em>Us<em> . . . If there are any - but it's a finger, Sherlock! How're you going to use a _finger_?"  
>"Come on, John! With a tissue sample as large as that, I could conduct all sorts of pioneering experiments! - Don't you want to know more about your power? – What's the limit? How long will it last? – Will you live forev-"<p>

"Sherlock," John cut in: a growl of a warning, designed to stop him in his tracks. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, I don't _want_ to know if I'll live forever? . . . No one should be able to live forever . . . No one. It's not right – it's totally . . . Well, it's . . . It's lonely, and-"  
>"John," Sherlock gripped John's shoulder tightly, his long fingers digging into John's shirt. His eyes flicked to his flatmate's hand for a second in surprise, before he caught on.<p>

It was happening: John had to concede, even though his power was vaguely repulsive to him, this bit was rather amazing. First, the bones: new ones appeared to stretch out of the stump, and Sherlock heard John's barely-concealed pain, as he tried to breathe through it. Bone-growing was clearly almost as painful as the original wound had been. Sherlock tried to disregard whether or not his friend was in pain: this was an amazing, unseen phenomena. He couldn't be distracted, even if it did make him, for perhaps the first time, empathise with another human being.

The muscles, veins and nerves were next, growing up like vines from the stump of the finger. They interwove, and eventually reached the point where the old finger had ended, and they stopped, and retraced their paths, consolidating until an exact replica of the muscles and veins and nerves of the old finger remained.

After this, the skin: it spread like mist across the exposed tissue, covering it in pale, unblemished flesh-colour that was brighter than the faded-tanned skin of the rest of John's hand. It appeared to Sherlock to have a cooling effect, as he observed John sighing with relief.

John wished he hadn't been so overtly in pain: he usually managed to keep the pain for things like this to a minimum on the outside. However, he thought Sherlock was probably distracted by the processes taking place in front of him to care much about whether or not he was suffering.

Lastly, the fingernail: it grew up from under the skin, and finished at the tip of the finger, short and perfectly rounded at the end. John flexed his still blood-covered hand, and for the first time creased the perfect skin of his finger, stretching the stiff new muscles in it.

"Bravo . . ." Sherlock breathed, as John looked up at his attentive, prying and fascinated eyes. He was like a child; he was seven again, and discovering toads under rocks and foliage, and cataloguing them in accordance with the book he'd taken from Mycroft's room.

"You do know you said that out loud, right?" John teased, a weak smile prevailing as the last of the pain and trauma subsided. The entire ordeal, from first cut to total recovery, had taken three minutes.

"Pretty slow that, actually," commented John, as he watched Sherlock, who was still totally transfixed on the finger. His eyes and the twitches of his lips and eyebrows indicated that his mind was processing the new data at a mile a minute.

"It'll be a little stiff for writing or typing with for a while, if you're interested in the functionality. The skin isn't as elastic as the old skin . . . I hadn't cut it full off, by the way – I severed it completely, because it's quicker to heal that way. Appendages regrow, rather than reattaching," He clarified.  
>"Appendages?" Sherlock asked, raising his eyebrows but not looking away from the hand.<br>"Yeah – fingers, toes . . . You get the gist . . ." He said, but his new finger was suddenly cold, and he realised Sherlock had gone a step further than staring, and had taken his hand in his own. His hands were cold, yet soft. Good for pastry-making, something crazy in the back of John's mind half-remembered, making him frown.

Sherlock felt that the skin was free of time's contours, as he crouched slightly to its level, trying to be as gentle as possible with his mobility tests.

"Um . . . Sherlock?"  
>"Complete and immediate motor function, no need for neural pathways to be reconstructed, it's an exact replica of the previous appendage, yet . . . A newer, more pristine edition . . ." Sherlock was muttering to himself now, and could barely hear him.<br>"Strangely, it took you less time to recover after you got shot than it did to regrow this, but I suppose it's easier, or at least less complex, to heal damaged organs and skin than to regrow an entire new appendage – intriguing, to say the least . . . Yes, John?" He asked eventually, as he bent the finger this way and that, and John felt slightly awkward. It was a sentiment he knew the consulting detective wouldn't reciprocate.

John used his right hand to point over to the laptop, which he could see had a small icon that had just popped up on the email programme.

Sherlock stood up suddenly and flashed a satisfied look at him, his face lifting and lighting up with smirking, unholy glee, as he said:  
>"You've got <em>mail<em>,"


	2. The Law Firm

_**AN: I am bored beyond belief, and I've been saving this chapter to put up on a rainy day - it being Britain, I didn't have to wait long! Here you go, the first chapter (excluding the prologue) of The Gifted League (sequel to A Study In Silver). **_

_**Please, I don't get a lot of reviews, so if you wouldn't mind terribly, please read and review! Cheers! - B. **_

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><p>"Sherlock Holmes!"<p>

Sherlock turned to see the smug, grinning face of his contemporary staring back at him. Both men wore uneasy smiles, though one was more antagonistic and the other more wary. For once, Sherlock was on the back foot. He tried to compensate, as John's gaze burnt into him: he was trying with barely-concealed raised eyebrows to understand Sherlock's aversion to the lawyer.

"Sebastian Wilkes," He greeted, taking the man's hand in a firm handshake, making sure to hold his thumb in such a way that he couldn't have his hand crushed in Sebastian's grip. John observed as his squinting smile failed to falter, and remained uniformly convincing, though this deception stopped abruptly at his eyes. They were cold and hesitant, just like the lawyer's were sly and mocking.

"This is my _friend_, Dr. John Watson," Sherlock introduced, indicating John with a look of what could have been construed as pride, if the emphasis on the word 'friend' was any sort of contributory factor to that particular conclusion. Indeed, Sebastian seemed impressed, and with the raising of his eyebrow sought clarification:  
>"Friend?" There was a snide edge to his voice, and the impressed expression started to look more like a derisive sneer.<p>

"Um, colleague," John specified, with a half-second glance at Sherlock.

Ouch, John.  
>– Enough people already mistake us for a couple. Do you want <em>him<em> to be one of them?

John smiled politely at Sebastian, shaking his hand during the exchange with Sherlock. The lawyer's hands were as cold as his attitude. John had a creeping feeling that maybe, actually, he should have left it at 'friend'. Already, he could tell that Sebastian was probably a bit of a bastard, if his smug expression and negative effect on the consulting detective were anything to go by. A lot of people wound Sherlock up, and vice versa, but there was something different about this one; it was something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

His handshake was firm, but not as firm as John's. He seemed slightly disappointed at not being able to gain some sort of upper-hand with his usually vice-like grip.

"Shall we?" Sebastian told them, indicating a rich mahogany door with his name engraved on it in gold, as if ever it needed to be made clearer to anyone that he was rich. John didn't miss Sherlock's extremely brief roll of the eyes, as they followed him into the office.

He lead them in with a nonchalance that said '_What, this? This is just my office. No big deal_.' John despised men like Sebastian; he would have thought Sherlock would_like_ them, seeing as they probably all went to the same public schools, but it seemed that nothing could be further from the truth. John smirked, and decided to down-play his dislike of Sebastian just to see if it was possible to wind Sherlock up:

Jealous?  
>Oh, please. There's nothing to be jealous of, just you wait. Money can't buy you everything.<p>

They filed into the office, and Sherlock quickly noted the building's particulars: floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows; many floors up; security systems out front that were virtually impregnable. Difficult to break into a building so heavily guarded - though not as impossible as Sebastian assumed, _obviously_, mused Sherlock with a self-contained feeling of joy.

Sebastian slumped himself lazily into his seat, clearly revelling in being the one in power in the situation. Sherlock's face remained placid and serene, although inside he was noting his former classmate's life story since he'd last seen him. He decided he'd be civil: he'd start with something _anyone_ could deduce, so as not to arouse suspicion. He was reluctant to use his powers on Sebastian, for _old time's sake _. . . But that was another, somewhat irrelevant and dull tale. Totally forgotten now. Totally forgiven.  
>Totally.<p>

Despite this, he decided to start off civilly, regardless of the past. This case, while obviously not ideal in terms of client, was intriguing.  
>"You're doing well – spending a lot of time abroad. Cases got you going round the world twice in a month?"<br>Sebastian's mouth twitched at the corner, and his eyes narrowed. The smile didn't quite reach his eyes.  
>"It's confidential," He brushed off the question, "- You're doing that thing again . . ." He turned to John, pointing an accusatory finger at his former classmate.<br>"He's got this trick, your _friend_," He said, "When we were at Uni together-"  
>"It's not a <em>trick<em>," Sherlock mumbled, looking to the side, away from the other two men in what looked like disgust. John knew he was probably listening to things he couldn't right now.  
>"You'd come down to dinner in the formal hall, and this freak would know who you'd been shagging the night before!"<p>

John's fingers, which had been resting on his lap reservedly, curled up with a tense, cringing spasm. _Freak_.  
>He laughed hollowly despite his internal repulsion, though the lawyer failed to notice that he was doing so merely out of politeness; a willingness to dissipate the tension that was mounting between the former classmates, which he was unfortunately caught in the centre of.<p>

"We all hated him!" Sebastian not-quite-joked.  
>"That much was abundantly clear," Sherlock muttered to himself. John looked at him quizzically: if he'd intended for that to be between the two of them, he could have just projected it. Maybe that's what he'd meant to do . . . Maybe he'd accidentally said it out loud? . . . Or perhaps he was just being rude on purpose?<p>

Whatever the case, John grew red, embarrassed at his _colleague_'_s _behaviour. Didn't he _know_ that John was trying to make the best of the situation, even though it meant putting up with this prick? Sherlock was ruining his efforts _spectacularly_.

The smile wiped from Sebastian's face, his leering grin at Sherlock's expense faltering and turning into a scowl. Sherlock stared at the floor silently. John continued to glare at him, but there were no thoughts coming from his friend. He obviously didn't want to share.  
>Frowning and opening his mouth, John went to make an apology for Sherlock; he was cut off by Sebastian's disingenuous laugh.<p>

"Never knew when to keep his mouth shut, this boy! I bet you've noticed, eh?"  
>John smiled blandly, and gave a curt nod to pacify the lawyer. It didn't go unnoticed by Sherlock, who sniffed, and demanded: "The case, Sebastian," with an icy stare. His eyes didn't blink, nor did they look away, as Sebastian shuffled uncomfortably in his seat under the scrutiny.<br>"Of course. Follow me,"

They filed out, Sherlock rushing out of the room, trailed by John and finally Sebastian, who showed them to an office. His sly expression was already returning: he derived simple joy just from knowing the way round his own office when others didn't apparently, as if it made him smarter than them. John was rather starting to suspect that he wasn't very nice.

"The portrait's Sir William Shad, the firm's former chairman. This used to be his office, but when he died we left it here as a sort of memorial,"

John looked around, seeing that there were few personal possessions to leave exactly as they were in memoriam when he'd died. He obviously wasn't very fond of his job, if he didn't want to leave any of his things here. Working in an office full of egotistical lawyers like Sebastian probably tended to have that effect, he thought.

Sherlock smirked despite himself. He'd thought the same.

However, he was more preoccupied by the seemingly arbitrary symbols on the wall. They were difficult to describe, but were bright golden yellow in colour and appeared to be some sort of language, or code. Lines, crosses, loops . . . This would take quite a bit of research. He was already consulting his contacts mentally – well, that wasn't accurate. He was making a list of who he'd contact, more accurately. He wasn't _actually consulting _them, though he could if he'd wanted to.

He took out his Blackberry and took photographs of the symbols. First, each of the two individually, and then both of them together. Frowning, he turned to the window once he was done: he stepped towards it, looking out across the direction to the nearest building, which was a little way away. It definitely couldn't have been jumped, by any stretch of the imagination – well, _almost_ any stretch. But when you could read minds and had an immortal friend, imagination and reality became somewhat interwoven. Sometimes it helped the cases; sometimes it made them so bizarre that they were superficially impenetrable.

Not that he didn't always solve them in the end. He _always_ got his man . . . He caught himself at this though, as he glanced round as Sebastian, who was taking a phone call with the same leering grin as earlier plastered all over his face, contorting the already comically aristocratic features into an abhorrent mask of entitlement and selfishness. Sherlock's lip curled once more, and he had to turn away.

Well. _Almost_ always.

He looked down: the extreme height of the building didn't serve to sicken him as it would others. He wasn't afraid of heights, and he scrutinised the ground below in as much detail as he could muster. It was a busy street: someone would have seen if the vandal had landed via wires or other such things. The surveillance downstairs was second-to-none; it was only in this usually unoccupied room that there was a security lapse. There was nothing real of value in here, so why protect it?

Foolish. It was a gaping hole in the design, which they'd hubristically failed to cover.

"Nothing was taken – it's just this message. There was no record of the door to this office opening last night. Every single time a door opens in the building it's logged in our systems," Sebastian drawled, smug even though he had no reason to be: he'd been robbed, despite the expensive systems. "There's a hole in the security," Sebastian said, as if they hadn't already thought of that,

Sherlock caught John thinking something about Star Wars. _A hole in their security? Like gaps in the shield of the death star_. . .

He had no idea what he meant, but he assumed it was a slight aimed at Sebastian.

"Find it, and we'll pay you. A five figure sum, each,"

Sherlock turned away from the window briskly, and with a frosty expression told his former classmate:  
>"I don't need financial incentive," He spoke in a lofty manner, looking proud and somehow cat-like: it was probably to do with the fact he'd flared his nostrils, and was regarding his contemporary with utter distain, John thought, lamenting the rejection of the fee.<br>"Sorry, Holmes – we need you on the books for this one, so we know what you're up to when you come and go from the office. A building full of confidential documents – who knowswhat you could get up to?"

The 'quip' lingered in the air for a moment, and Sherlock held Sebastian's gaze for longer than was probably warranted, his upper lip twitching.

"We have to pay you, legally. No pay, no case," Sebastian finished; his sneering smile made it absolutely clear that he thought it was worth the money, just to have Sherlock as _his _employee. He would be Sherlock's boss; his ego would be hugely inflated, and Sherlock's hugely damaged. Just the way he liked it.

Sherlock stood stock still for a moment, his hand clasped behind his baclk, staring intently once more at the portrait. But John – who was conflicted between consoling Sherlock and jumping for joy that he may actually get paid – could tell that inside he was seething with anger. For a few moments, even the intensity of the stare slipped, and he was quite expressionless. John had a sneaking suspicion that he was plotting.  
>He eventually accepted:<br>"I'll take the case,"

Sherlock proceeded to spend the rest of the morning running about the office, ducking up and down, crouching and crawling about, and generally making a nuisance of himself. When he told John that he was looking for the work station that was in the direct eyeline of Sir. William's old office – which turned out to be the office of one Edward van Coon, manager of international trade and commercial cases in the East – John suspected that maybe, just maybe, he had done so in the most annoying possible way, just to get to Sebastian. The lawyer had spent all morning rather hilariously running about after the consulting detective, and apologising for him, which John had tried not to laugh at. Infantile egotistical games, it seemed, were best combated with infantile behaviour.

He still resolved, though, to inquire as to Sherlock and Sebastian's past as soon as they left the building. He was genuinely interested as to what the consulting detective may be hiding: he already knew John's darkest secret, and it was time for a little payback.

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><p>Leaving the lawyer's office building, they hailed a cab to go to the apartment of Edward van Coon.<p>

"What," John asked eagerly as they left the building and Sherlock hailed a taxi from seemingly nowhere, "Was _that_?"  
>"Hmm?" His friend responded mildly.<br>"You know – _that_! With Sebastian?"  
>"Honestly, I don't know what you mean," Sherlock replied plainly. John sensed that he was trying too hard to pretend nothing was wrong: it wasn't exactly a Sherlock-like trait.<br>"You're Sherlock bloody Holmes, of course you know what I mean. Everyone in a fifty mile radius would know there was something weird going on between you! The awkwardness, the clash of egos, the . . . _Power-struggles_. I've never seen you so . . . Reserved, before," He sounded almost concerned. Sherlock forcibly kept his face blank.  
>"You <em>have <em>only known me about two months," Sherlock reminded him, as they clambered into the cab. He recited the address he'd charmed out of Edward van Coon's secretary where they could find his flat.

There was an uncomfortable silence, as Sherlock listened to John grinding his teeth in annoyance, trying to contain himself by staring vacantly out of the window, and wondering how else to say what Sherlock knew he was getting at.

"Listen, Sherlock. If this is going to affect the case, you need to let me know about it. You can't exactly be unbiased if you hate your client. If it's not going to be a problem, then by all means, don't tell me. But I'm your friend, and I promise, I won't judge you," John spoke slowly, treading carefully. He was slightly wary of what could have happened between Sebastian Wilkes and Sherlock '_girls-not-really-my-area_' Holmes.

Sherlock sighed this time. Begrudgingly, he accepted that, for once, John was right and he could, possibly, maybe, slightly, be a _little_ wrong.

"There was an assault," He said shortly, in a low voice.

John blinked, and his brow slowly lowered.  
>"An assault?"<br>"Yes," Came the too-quick response from his friend.  
>"Who?" John asked, still quite confused.<br>"Some thuggish second years: rugby players, they were quite intoxicated,"  
>"That's not – I meant, who was the victim?"<br>". . . A first year,"  
>"How did you know them?"<br>"Friend of a friend,"  
>"How does it involve Sebastian?"<br>"He was one of the gang. He wasn't one to play rugby, he's was more _polo_, as I'm sure you've noticed. But he was in that group at the time, and though he wasn't that drunk, he joined in. He was always one to join in with a bully, if it advanced his social status,"  
>"Did he get a conviction?"<p>

Sherlock paused, blinking and looking at the taxi driver in the rear-view mirror. He quickly worked out that he wasn't listening: others might have questioned the sometimes wordless conversation the two of them were having in the back seat.

"No,"  
>"Well, how do you know it was him then? – Did you deduce it? Did you . . . You know? How did you . . . ?" John's voice trailed off; Sherlock folded his hands in his lap silently, unresponsive.<p>

There was an awkward silence in which the sound of a penny dropping could almost actually be heard.

It was _you_.  
>Yes, it was me.<br>_Sebastian assaulted you?_  
>He was one of them, yes.<p>

". . . What happened?" John asked, obviously curious but at the same time trying to be sensitive. Sherlock tried to make it clear that his concern was unneeded, and that he'd put the whole thing to rest years ago – but to make something you weren't sure was true 'clear' was difficult. Thankfully, he was practised.

He sighed. "It isn't important, is it?" He near-hissed.

John looked out of his window, and Sherlock followed suit. There was a weighted silence.

Yes. Yes, it _is_ important, Sherlock.  
>But <em>why<em>?  
>Yeah, no! Let's <em>not<em> talk about how our client may have abetted an assault on you! Let's disregard your entire relationship! Surely, that'll make for an uncompromised case?

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, John," Sherlock sniffed.  
>"The point still stands, Sherlock," He snapped back. Sherlock removed his hands from his lap, shoving his left one into his pocket and examining his right glove with needless detail; not looking John in the eyes as he finally gave in.<p>

"I'd been invited out with them, to the local pub. It was the first time; I didn't like going out. I got a little too drunk for my own good after much persuasion; when I left, they cornered me and beat me until I was unconscious. There, is _that_ what you wanted to hear?" He snapped.

John gulped. While he was glad it was out in the open, he half-wished he'd never asked. It was agitating Sherlock's brain, which was needed currently for solving crime.  
>"Sherlock, I-"<br>"-I was in hospital for a while," Sherlock interrupted, and John shut his mouth. He decided to give his friend a wide berth. "I came to the next day; someone in the street had called an ambulance after they'd left. Sebastian came to visit, out of guilt more than anything else. He said that he'd tried to stop them . . . It was a lie, of course. To maintain their favour, he'd assisted in the assault. Obviously I didn't tell him I knew, so he thinks to this day he got away with it. I pretend I don't know, and he continues to feel superior. The end,"

John's mouth was hanging agape, and he was frowning. He couldn't resist another question: he justified it with the fact it could be vital to the investigation.  
>"No, no – it's not. Why were they beating you up in the first place?"<br>"I – said something I shouldn't have," Sherlock replied, after catching himself at first.  
>"That could be a summary of any day in your life, Sherlock,"<br>"I wasn't always like this. I used to be more reserved,"  
>"What did you say, then?"<br>"I was mildly intoxicated, as I say. Sebastian mentioned my _trick_," He said the last word with a deserved sneer.

My deductions, not _this_.

"They were curious, of course. It's hard to say no to a crowd of shouting, drunken single-digit IQ rugby players. I went a little too far. I started using chatter, as well as deductions. I must have offended someone,"  
>John rubbed his face with one hand, shaking his head.<p>

Jesus, Sherlock. Did you not know at the time that it was offensive?

"Sociopath," Sherlock murmured.  
>"I thought you were different back then?"<br>"Oh yes, you're right! I must have suddenly forgotten to interpret social cues somewhere around 25," Sherlock said sardonically.  
>"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Sherlock," John mimicked. Sherlock's lip curled with annoyance, as they pulled up at Edward van Coon's flat.<p>

John paid the fair. It seemed the least he could do, though he was harbouring a hundredweight of bills at home. He'd meant to bring it up this morning, but then there had been the whole finger thing and he hadn't gotten round to it. Though there was a cheque in his name nestled in his pocket for around £50,000, he didn't want to rely on Sherlock's cases to pay him: he wanted – no, he _needed_ to earn money off his own back. He felt so useless, just tagging along for the ride; always hanging on Sherlock's coat tails. He'd even initially refused the money, though he'd taken it afterwards because of the sheer amount of money he needed. Though principled, he was practical. He wasn't going to abandon common sense in favour of sparing a bastard like Sebastian a few quid: £50, 000 was water of a duck's back to him, anyway.

It would be nice maybe to just be Doctor Watson again: he'd worked his arse off in medical school, and though he'd found himself drawn to the armed forces, there was always a place in his heart for a mundane, regular doctoring career (especially when his home life was so far from ordinary). He resolved to go and look for a job at a general practise later: £50, 000 was very nice but it would soon go, he thought, wincing as he recalled the stacks of letters on the coffee table. He pulled his coat tight around him, and decided to try and talk Sherlock, who was now sulking spectacularly, back around:

Listen, Sherlock. I'm sorry; I didn't mean to-  
>It doesn't matter.<br>Yeah, but still-  
>Leave it, John.<br>Well . . . Would it make you feel better if I said you could have some blood . . . ?  
>I'm not a child, John. I can't be won round with petty bribes.<br>. . . I still have the finger. It's in the freezer, in a Ziploc bag.

No response. John supposed that Sherlock had silently agreed to his deal. A small smile spread across his face, as Sherlock hopped lightly up the stairs to the flat's entrance, coming across the intercom system and scowling at it. John trudged up the same stairs in triple the time, his leg twinging slightly.

"How're we going to get in now? Are you going to use Lestrade's badge?"  
>"Don't be idiotic. He's not going to just let us in. He's a lawyer, remember – he knows his rights. No, we're going to ask . . . <em>Lucy<em>,"

He pushed the button next to the name he'd selected: the flat above van Coon's.

"Why would she let us in?" John inquired, puzzled as usual.  
>"Look – she's just moved in. The label: it's new. No one ever replaces them, thus she's new to the area, thus she probably doesn't know her neighbours that well," Sherlock explained, his words cold and brisk. It couldn't have been more different than his response to the neighbour, Lucy, when she asked who was there.<p>

"Um, hi! This is so embarrassing – I don't know if we've met, but I live in the flat above," Lied Sherlock, with a light expression and tone of voice.  
>"Well, I've just moved in . . ."<br>Told you so, John.  
>". . . I'm really sorry, but I'm afraid I've forgotten my keys! – I've locked myself out!" He said with a concerned face, biting his lip and turning on his charm. He sounded vaguely delightful and friendly, much to John's surprise. His eyes, full of hope, gazed directly into the camera, and John had no doubt that Lucy never stood a chance.<p>

Sherlock carefully listened to any thought-responses from Lucy that might mean she wouldn't let them in . . . Nothing. Only the usual _what colour are his eyes? They're like blue, but – green? But . . . More like, silver? I don't know_ etc. ad nauseum. Though this sort of this happened repeatedly and consistently when it came to women, he didn't understand why it was always the eyes. Well, _usually_ it was the eyes . . .

"Oh, no! – I'll let you in! Hang on, let me just press the thingy-"  
>"Thanks so much!" Sherlock exclaimed, clapping his hands together in faked glee. John was speechless, which was only reinforced when his friend asked with raised eyebrows and a matter-of-fact tone, "And can I use your balcony?"<p> 


	3. CLASSIFIED

_**AN: So . . . Nothing much to say other than I'd really love some reviews - your thoughts? Obviously I'm veering off from what you all know already into my own plots now, so enjoy! **_

_**Also a shout-out to my wonderful, indispensable beta, SharkByOnly, for being wonderful and indispensable to a fault, really. She's been very busy, and as a result, I didn't get this beta-read by anyone other than myself (meticulously, though!). But if you spot any errors, let me know! **_

_**Thanks - R&R! - B. **_

* * *

><p>"Do you want me to keep going? – Never mind, I'm almost at the bottom of the list, I may as well finish-"<p>

Sherlock was performing in the living room, dramatically trying to win round the stern yet inexperienced DI Dimmock to the point of view – well, the _fact_ that Eddie van Coon had been murdered. John could see what he was getting at. He was left handed, and yet the gun was in his right hand, blah blah blah. He was less concerned about that as soon as he looked through the contents of a safe that had just been found and opened by crime scene investigators.

Sherlock had palmed the safe's contents onto him, assuming there would be nothing relevant in there. So, he'd pulled on a pair of standard-issue blue latex gloves – _not all of us can afford the very best leather gloves _– and was going through the documents. They were mostly cases, with the name of the client in typewriter-esque crisp letters on each of their top left hand corners. Surprisingly, most of them bore the military seal, and the word, 'CLASSIFIED' in block capitals: they were top secret, and so he did nothing more than observe the names. He didn't open them.

He'd reached the very last one and was about to discard the files for evidence bags, when he was plunged into a cold state of surprise when he saw _Watson, Doctor John. _

He froze for a moment, but then recovered sufficiently to brush the file lightly with the tips his fingers, dumbly wondering what could possibly be contained within the file. He'd never broken the law, or at least, he'd never been court-marshalled officially, because nothing _officially_ happened . . . Perhaps there was another Doctor John Watson in the military at the moment? It wasn't completely unlikely.

He stole a glance at the contents, figuring he could do no harm when only looking at what was probably his own file. His eyes widened, reflected back at him in black and white, with a grey yet not unfriendly sheen. His own picture: there was no mistake. It was his file.

"He was waiting for the killer – he'd been _threatened_," Sherlock finished with a disapproving shake of his head.

Come on, John. We're going.

"Sherlock, wait-" John called through to the other room.  
>"Yes?" Snapped Sherlock, poking his head around the door of the bedroom with a scowl, annoyed that his dramatic exit had been foiled by his friend.<br>John gestured wordlessly at the file.

Sherlock looked down his nose at it, but then frowned, snatching it up and whisking around.

John, this is-  
>I know. I was <em>there<em> . . . We can't hand it in to the police.  
>What, you're going to withhold evidence? <em>You <em>want to withhold evidence?  
>It's <em>my file<em>, Sherlock – it's my _life_. What if they read it? What if they found out about Afghanistan, about me getting shot, about the deal-?  
>They need clearance to read the files. Don't worry, I'll handle it-<p>

Sherlock abruptly shoved it in amongst the other military case files so as to hide John's name. He gathered them all up, and strode into the next room once more.  
>"Dimmock?" Barked Sherlock.<br>"I'm busy, Holmes, doing some _actual work-_"  
>"I know you're busy – all that trying to prove me wrong must be difficult when I'm <em>so obviously right<em> – but this is a matter of extreme importance. Observe, if you can spare _a second_ of your time, this seal," He said acerbically.

Dimmock opened his mouth, turning around to face Sherlock with anger blazing in his eyes, but as soon as he saw the military stamp on the topmost file, the anger subsided, replaced with irritation. He groaned quietly to himself.

"So he did military cases as well as commercial . . . Great. Fantastic. Now we're going to have to coordinate the case with the MoD. Thanks a lot, Holmes," He spat.  
>"The occupation of a dead man is hardly <em>my<em> fault, Dimmock," Sherlock retorted icily. "Sorry I saved you a massive public inquiry into how a police investigation _accidentally_ blundered into a matter they weren't cleared to interfere with," His superior tone was grating on everyone in the flat: even John could tell that. Dimmock sighed, glowering at the consulting detective.

"Get out, Holmes. Don't come and see me until you have something concrete – and leave those folders. I'd hateto add withholding evidence to your criminal record,"

He's joking.  
>He'd <em>better be <em>bloody joking.  
>I've never been caught. I don't <em>have <em>a criminal record.  
>Not yet, anyway! Just give him the damn files.<br>Oh, I intend to. I have a plan.  
>What is it? – Sherlock?<p>

Sherlock jutted his chin upwards, drawing himself up to his full height and towering over Dimmock in the type of display that wouldn't look out of place on a peacock. He looked down at the DI, and thrust the files onto his chest wordlessly, while the shorter man glared at him and grabbed them. John felt slightly violated, seeing his personal details being bounded about with such little regard.

Then, with no further ado, he strode out of the apartment with a flourish. John directed an apologetic grimace at Dimmock, and gestured in Sherlock's direction, silently explaining that he'd better be off. Dimmock replied with a sigh, and a terse nod. John near-jogged after his friend, who traversed the white-painted stairwell in front of him, his coat spanning out behind him, twirling like a cape in the wind as he swept downstairs and out of sight.

To add to his list of worries about the file, whether or not he'd offended Sherlock earlier and whether he had enough money to buy groceries this month, he now had to worry about whether Sherlock would remember to wait for him when he inevitably hailed a cab in the street below. With a longsuffering sigh, he thought as loudly as possible,

Sherlock – wait for _me_!

* * *

><p>"If you want to speak to me, Holmes, make an appointment with my secretary,"<p>

Sherlock's squinting eyes accompanied his mock-display of thought, before he clarified,  
>"How about nine o'clock at Scotland Yard?"<br>"Why, I don't-" Began the lawyer, smiling uneasily at his workmates to try and pacify their curious facial expressions and aroused interests.  
>"Van Coon. He was . . . The police are in his flat," John said, remembering that the official line was that it was suicide, and not wanting to land them in any sort of trouble. Sherlock was less hesitant.<br>"He was murdered, Sebastian. Still want me to make an appointment with your secretary?" He spat bitterly. There was an uncomfortable silence: Sebastian wiped his mouth, looking rather flustered, and his associates all shifted about, trying to ignore the latent atmosphere of animosity between the two men.

"Excuse me," Sebastian told his colleagues hurriedly, and fixed Sherlock with the hardest glare he could muster: it wasn't very frightening, seeing as he was already on the back-foot about Van Coon's unfortunate fate.

They filed into the men's room, and Sebastian made for the sink. He looked at them in the mirror; their faces were made even more pallid by the white light shining up at them in the darkened room. They were the only ones in there, Sherlock made sure, before questioning the uncharacteristically quiet Sebastian.

"I'm afraid we're going to have to have a little chat about some case files we found in Van Coon's flat, _Sebastian_," Sherlock told him, rounding on his contemporary. John could see his friend's craving for payback had only intensified now that he had the means to get it. John stepped in quickly:  
>"Just, some military files. Nothing . . . incriminating," John struggled to find words that would make him sound less accusatory, and didn't have much luck. He needed to bring the lawyer in from the cold if they were to have any chance of getting him to cooperate.<p>

No need, John. You knock him out, I'll read his mind. See?  
>I hope you're joking. You <em>are<em> joking – Sherlock?

No reply. John gulped, and his gaze lingered on Sherlock for a minute.  
>"All we want is some information about Van Coon. To help us build a case. It'll be better for you in the long run," He assured the lawyer.<br>Sebastian kept his eyes on Sherlock, but tore them away when he spoke to John, begrudgingly accepting that he was right.  
>"Harrow; Oxford. Bright guy. One of our best. Always got what the client wanted, and was quick about it, too. He didn't mind travelling to China at a minute's notice for trade deals and legal consults, so I gave him most of the Eastern trading cases. Suppose I'll have to find someone else to do them now . . . He'll be sorely missed. That's about it, really," Sebastian said, shrugging at the end of his half-truth.<br>"And the military files? – _Don't_ try and pretend you don't know about them. You never were that good of an actor," Sherlock said coldly.

He and Sebastian locked eyes: John felt a wave of panic spread over his face as he saw the sleuth's expression. His eyes burnt into the lawyer, in a way that said, _I know what you did_. _I know that you lied. _

Great! Fan-bloody-tastic! . . . We'll _never_ win him back round! What is this, good-cop bad-cop? It's childish, Sherlock – it'll never work!  
>On the contrary, John . . .<p>

". . . He was one of the best, like I say . . . He was scouted for a few government contracts. But they were, well . . . More sort of 'under the table' deals. Off the books. Sounds like they paid well for him to keep quiet, from what he said to me,"  
>"What kind of thing?" John encouraged.<br>"I . . ." Sebastian faltered, and slid his fidgeting hands into his pockets.  
>"Think carefully about what you say next," Growled Sherlock threateningly.<br>He took a minute to compose himself.  
>"Anything they needed . . . <em>covered up<em>,"  
>"Like?" John pressed, intensely interested, and worried. After all, it wasn't <em>Sherlock's<em> name in a file in an evidence locker somewhere; it wasn't _Sherlock's_ file that would get read by the police, and mean he was exposed.  
>"I don't know! He was only obliged to confidentially inform me, as his boss, of the <em>nature<em> of the contracts, but he didn't go into specifics. He _couldn't_,"  
>"If I find out you're lying to me again Seb-" Sherlock began in a low warning voice.<br>"You'll do what? Have me arrested? – For what?"  
>"Obstruction," Came Sherlock's quick repost.<br>John knew he was bluffing about getting the lawyer arrested, but his poker face was _damn _good.  
>"I bet you're not even supposed to have <em>seen<em> those files," Sebastian realised, pointing an accusatory finger at Sherlock. "That's why you came to me, instead of just reading them!"

The lawyer's phone chirruped, and he took it out sharply, glad of the distraction. Sherlock watched him carefully. His face twisted into a visage of disbelief and hatred:  
>"This just gets better and <em>better<em> . . . It's my chairman. He says the police think it's suicide,"  
>"Well it <em>isn't<em>," Snapped Sherlock.  
>"That's not how they see it," Sebastian retorted.<br>"Seb-!" Sherlock tried to intervene, but it was too late.  
>"I hired you to do a job, <em>Holmes<em>," Sebastian spat. "_Don't_ get sidetracked,"

With that parting sentiment, he stormed out of the bathroom.  
>John watched Sherlock's body language change accordingly, to that of someone whose pride has been severely damaged: he drew himself up to his full height, chin jutting out and lifting up, and puffing out his chest.<br>"Can't you stop him? – I mean, with your-"  
>"No, no – <em>mind control<em> is a totally separate power. One I wish I had the fortune to possess at times such as this,"  
>John half-smiled. Sherlock's syntax always got more complicated and pompous at times when he was least sure of himself.<br>"I thought lawyers were all supposed to be spineless wankers?" John asked with a mock-tone of surprise.  
>He didn't see Sherlock's smile as he turned towards the doorway, but he knew it was there. At least a little of the damage had been repaired, he thought.<br>He made a show of thinking about his next question rather than asking it, as they were walking through a crowded restaurant: it wouldn't do for them to be overheard. Sherlock had had the same thought, and was waiting for the inevitable question:

Where to next?  
>The cipher. I can get most of my thinking about it done back at the flat.<br>You don't need me there, then?  
>Maybe – why?<br>I need to go and find a job, Sherlock. There's an opening for locum work at the local clinic–  
>But you've just been offered a job that pays five figures!<br>It's a principle, Sherlock.  
>I will never fathom other people and their need to make things harder for themselves and for me alike . . . Well, if you <em>must<em> go and apply . . .  
>Well I'm glad to have your blessing, <em>your majesty<em>.  
>Glad to hear it.<p> 


	4. Matters of Privacy

_**AN: Actually, there's not much for me to say, really. The story starts to get quite different from here on in. I';ve got the whole plot sorted though, so don't worry about lack of ideas! I'm not doing NaNoWriMo or whatever, because I can't guarantee I'll be writing consistently all this month. It's all about free-time. I'm just going to do this whenever I can! **_

_**Enjoy! R&R, if you wouldn't mind doing so! DEFINITELY let me know what you think about how it's getting on. - B. **_

* * *

><p>It's just one file!<br>_Only_ one?  
>Maybe more. But it's just <em>one<em> violation of protocol; the amount of files scarcely matters!  
>The mind boggles, Sherlock. If the public knew their details were being sought after by someone like you –<br>– Then we'd be on another planet, because _I_ don't even get mentioned in the papers after solving a case. Not a word. No one knows I exist, aside from a few private clients.

Sherlock rifled through the printed photographs from his Blackberry: low resolution, and poor, but they did the job. He stuck them onto the wall above the mantelpiece, not worrying about the damaging effect that blue tack can have on wallpaper. He was indifferent to the furnishings, anyway – that was more John's area, he'd learnt, from being constantly reminded that they had to pay for 'accidental' damage to the flat.

John had gone to bed hours ago, blissfully able to empty his mind of this infuriating set of characters. He could make nothing of it, without the appropriate data. He could have decoded it easily with just _one clue_, but even an internet search had been fruitless. He'd been through _everything. _Right now though, he was more concerned with being as persuasive as possible.

One phone call, to the MoD. That's all I ask. That's all it would take.  
>Oh really?<br>Don't be coy, it doesn't suit you.  
>I'm definitely not inclined to help you if you continue with that attitude.<br>You know what? . . . You sound just like-  
>-Too far, Sherlock.<p>

Sherlock slumped down into an armchair: one that John had grown to call 'Sherlock's Armchair' though this was meaningless. Sherlock didn't prefer either of the two: it was convenient that this one was close enough for him to fall into; otherwise it would have been the floor, as usual. The fact that it was pleasing to his senses to curl up on the piece of furniture was incidental, at most.

Well?  
>I don't see how it will benefit me to help you.<br>It'll be a hindrance if you don't. If you think I'm bad _now_, just you wait-  
>There are worse things that I deal with all day than you, little brother.<br>Oh really? Point them out to me. I'm sure I can adjust my efforts accordingly.

The sigh Mycroft gave in his office across London was almost palpable to Sherlock, whose lip tugged up ever to slightly at the side; a sly expression, as if a fish hook had pulled the skin up against his will. He smoothed his face out again, all business.

When can you get me the files?  
>Promise me, you'll aid Lestrade with a few of the more simple cases?<br>No.  
>But surely if he texts you with the details, it wouldn't be too taxing for you to give him some sort of indication as to what direction to-<br>No.  
>You really are a <em>child<em>.  
>And you really have <em>no idea<em> of how my methods work.  
>All the same, you're not getting off scot-free. The paperwork for illegal file extraction is atrocious, I've heard.<br>. . . Fine. Tell him he can text me. I shan't be volunteering for anything, though.  
>Then consider it a deal. It's been a pleasure.<br>Are you expecting me to return that?  
>I'll have the files delivered as soon as I can.<p>

. . . And Mycroft was gone, just like that. Sherlock sighed, and continued to stare vacantly at the wall, his eyes the only part of him moving. This included his eyelids, as he became disinclined to blink, lest the train of thought he was following be disrupted in any way. He blinked so seldom, he recalled a night in 2006 that he'd visited an abandoned theatre, scared for his life, but . . . It seemed no more than a dream, now; nothing had truly happened. Surely it had been nothing . . .

Nothing. There was no data, and even fewer possible links. He listed mentally the contacts he would get in touch with, in the hours he'd learned were usually social acceptable (not right now, at 2:30 am, when only consulting detectives, the British Government and prostitutes were still up working).

The secretary. If Eddie van Coon was being threatened, they wouldn't have missed it. However unobservant people tended to be, they could barely neglect to notice someone they spent a fair amount of time with fearing for their life: perhaps looking shaken-up, or behaving oddly; writing a hasty ill-thought-out will . . .

Raz, too. Even if he didn't know what the code meant, the type of spray paint used could lead them to the person who painted it, if it wasn't too generic. He was ashamed to say, he didn't yet have an encyclopaedic knowledge of all sorts of spray paint according to how they looked when applied to a wall. Perhaps one day he could add this to his all-round knowledge of tobacco and cigarettes from their appearances and smell, and of men's underwear from their waistband.

Until then . . . There wasn't much else he could do. He'd probably have to do his investigations alone, seeing as John had gone and got himself a job interview tomorrow, of all days, at the local surgery. He huffed at the memory of John coming in with a grin, and his own lukewarm response, which had caused a minor argument. Mrs. Hudson had tried to break said dispute up, which was wholly unnecessary.

It didn't matter what John did: he was indifferent . . . He didn't care.  
>Unless it interfered with his ability to accompany him on a case, that was. What if he needed his input? What if it was of <em>vital importance<em>? It was a little selfish of him to just take off. He should care more about whether he needed him or not.

He'd gone to bed in the end, but there was a lingering resignation in the air that told him, should John's thoughts not suffice, that it would only be part-time – maybe a few hours a week. John was _sure_ it wouldn't interfere. Well, it already _was_, Sherlock thought with indignation.

He grabbed John's laptop, and logged in, typing in the password he had so easily guessed earlier. Really, he thought, he should advise an associate of his who could have vital information about cases on his computer to protect it with a better password than '_password1234_'.

With a monumental weary sigh, he went straight for the BBC news website. As he did so he listened intently, in the way only he could, for the sound of John's dreaming. What did normal people dream of? Probably not memories of abuse, or horrific situations of what _might have been_. Sleep, for them, must be so relaxing: not having to worry about whether or not you were broadcasting your subconscious' most surreal thoughts to the whole street, and such forth.

If he was truly honest, this was part of the reason he would try to sleep as seldom as possible. He was scared of the havoc it would create; scared of scaring John . . . No, not _just_ John – of blowing his cover. That was the primary concern. Not John. Definitely not.

John dreamt he was playing rugby. How _ordinary_, Sherlock thought. However, situation faded out and was replaced by a totally obscure, surreal one in which John's journey home wasn't shown, but when he arrived, Sherlock himself was walking round. Sherlock _presumed_ what he was seeing was John's childhood home (cramped, tatty, but better described as 'well-loved').

In the dream, Sherlock ate toast for breakfast, with honey, just carrying it around without a plate and getting crumbs everywhere, which seemed to annoy John a lot. Sherlock was wearing boxer shorts, which had tiny fish on them, and nothing else (Sherlock thought that John had a very accurate imagination, if his judge of what he looked like without clothes was anything to go by). But _why_? . . . Oh.

John dreamt that Sherlock and Harry had intercourse while he was out at rugby practise, which made John feel sad and angry and disappointed and weird and strange and why would Harry have sex with a _man_? With _Sherlock_?_ I must be dreaming. . . _

Sherlock recoiled swiftly. He decided he didn't want to listen to John's dreams anymore. He also decided that other people's dreams were almost as bad as his own, or at least as surreal, so he probably shouldn't be worried about it.

He shook himself, and his vision zoned back in, his brief period of what could be called 'voyeurism' ending with a start. For the first time, he had a clear, unavoidable intuition that he had done something wrong, and that he had crossed a line. It was a totally new feeling to the usually so socially inept consulting detective. He didn't like it.

He clicked on 'news just in' swiftly. He hadn't checked it for hours now, so wrapped up he had been in trying to solve this singular coded puzzle, and cajoling Mycroft into getting the military files he wished to procure, amongst other things.

When he saw it, his eyes widened, and the fish-hook smirk was reinstated.  
>Brian Lukis, freelance journalist, found dead in his flat – which was five floors from the ground, with no one seen coming or going from the scene – at midnight.<p>

_More data_.

* * *

><p>"I had a really weird dream about you last night," Yawned John, stretching his arms up and touching the top of the doorframe as he walked into the living room. He wore a dressing gown, and his pyjamas, which were just a little too like his normal clothes. He didn't seem bothered by this.<p>

"Mmm," Sherlock replied, trying not to react remarkably to John's statement, as he walked into the kitchen. From the corner of his eye, he observed John pick out a jar of honey from the cupboard, and eye it suspiciously.

"Yeah . . . You were at my house, I think,"  
>"Your house? What house?" Sherlock played dumb. It was the one piece of acting his was poor at – well, John thought it was poor, but that could have just been the voice of experience speaking. As he spent so much time with him, he was getting better at telling when he was lying.<p>

Oh God. You saw, didn't you?

That's _private! _You – you can't just, barge in! I bet you do it all the time, don't you? I bet you bloody _live_ in my brain, analysing everything I do –  
>I resent that.<br>Then _tell me it isn't true_!

"John," Sherlock said, with a sigh. He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing them with one hand. "I . . . As much as it pains me to admit it . . . _No_, I don't read your mind unless absolutely necessary,"  
>"'As much as it pains you to admit it'? What's that supposed to mean?"<br>"I wish I had the strength to betray you like that. But I don't . . . _Conversation is for friends. Telepathy is for others_," He begrudgingly recited his mantra, hating that he was now having to admit to his weakness. He wished he'd never made this connection with his flatmate.

But when he looked at John's face . . . He knew it was unavoidable.

There was a moment of silence. John shook his head with an unhappy smile of incredulity plastered across his face.

"It's true, John. You have my word," He said solemnly.  
>"And what's that worth? You've just been invading my dreams. I bet you put yourself in my dreams, to, to-"<br>"No, I didn't . . . That was all – that was you," He coughed quietly, awkwardly clearing his throat. It was a social trope, he realised: he added this newly-acquired information of the reasoning behind nervous behaviours to his hard-drive, wishing he hadn't learnt about it from experience but from observation instead.

John proceeded to shove bread into the toaster with unnecessary force, turning up the heat as if to punish the bread, and glaring with side-long glances at the man he'd dreamt of last night.

". . . I don't know how to put this-" Began Sherlock with odd caution.  
>"-Then don't," Snapped John, patience currently non-existent. He seemed angry at himself, too.<br>"What I mean to say is, I would never . . ." He huffed again, his own words sounding inadequate as they reached his tongue, like they'd been remanufactured on the way down from his brain to sound as pathetic as was humanly possible.

"Just forget it," John dismissed quietly, his stubborn voice managing to fully contain his anger for the first time in a few minutes.

He proceeded to eat his sooty toast, and get dressed in bad spirits: he cut himself shaving multiple times, though obviously Sherlock would never know, as surface cuts healed in a matter of seconds. They were still painful, though, and he cursed himself for getting so wound up over _nothing_.  
>It was just a dream. Just a <em>silly dream<em>. Who cared if Sherlock saw it? He certainly didn't. It meant nothing to him. Just a dream.

He'd calmed down by the time he got downstairs, ready for his job interview: he'd made an effort, with a brown corduroy suit jacket and a tie. He wanted to patch things up with Sherlock – it would be hideous if the atmosphere continued to be so poisonous in the flat for a prolonged period of time, and he was determined to be the better man – but he found that he wasn't alone.

"Mycroft? What are you doing here?" He asked, obviously surprised.  
>"My brother requested a few files be brought into his custody for safe keeping . . . Military files, needed for one of his little cases, I believe,"<br>_Little cases_ earned him an acidic glare from his brother, who leaned against the table, his arms folded with one file in his hand, and the rest of them sitting on the table. He was hunched over, sulking, but at the same time looking as if he were ready to pounce.

"He assures me they'll be returned as soon as possible, and will be kept safe," Continued the elder Holmes, ignoring the glare and looking at John with a patronising fake smile, which never failed to unnerve John slightly. However, he was made of sterner stuff than the spineless politicians and beurocrats that Mycroft usually dealt with, and he took it in his stride after having had a lot of practise when first kidnapped by him.

"Bye, then," Sherlock cut in briskly, impatiently shooing his brother away all but physically. He never moved from his position, barely even blinking.  
>"Don't forget our bargain," The elder Holmes murmured coldly and quietly to his brother on his way out of the door. Sherlock merely looked at him with an unblinking glare, his head moving to watch him leave, much like a bird watches its prey scampering along in blissful ignorance. Mycroft, of course, blithely ignored him, and strutted downstairs.<p>

Sherlock slammed the door loudly behind him, leaping into action with the files, sifting through them and obviously in 'case-mode'; he didn't want to talk about the dream, or the argument.

John thought loudly that he thought Mycroft had put on weight since he'd last seen him, as a test to see if Sherlock was listening to his thoughts.  
>. . . No response. <em>Shoot<em> . . . _Maybe_ he'd been telling the truth? It would be pretty hard for John to save face if _Sherlock_ was the one being reasonable, and _he_ was the one being paranoid. He'd have to investigate further, after his interview.

He grabbed his coat, and opened the door, about to follow in Mycroft's footsteps, when a gentle yet swift hand curled itself around his arm. He looked down in dumb shock, and then down at the floor.  
>"I need to go to the interview, Sherlock," He informed his friend coldly in a low voice, not looking him in the eye. It was a warning, as well as a statement.<br>"I know," The sleuth responded, and to his surprise, pressed a file into his chest. John took it, his hand moving sluggishly with surprise. The hand on his arm was withdrawn.  
>"This is yours. I won't read it. I know vaguely what happened, obviously, but nothing – well, no details . . ."<p>

John turned to face his friend, as he was once again calling him, with a look of raised-eyebrow-warranting amazement. Sherlock's face was sincere, but he frowned slightly when he looked at John's awestruck expression.

What?  
>. . . It's nothing.<p>

"Thank you," John told him, and looked down at the file once again. Not only had Sherlock retrieved the file from somewhere it could have been read by just about anybody: he'd also chosen to respect his privacy, and not read it himself.  
>"You're welcome. I'm sorry for intruding before. I don't know much about privacy, but I'm given to believe that reading about someone's intimate affairs, or indeed . . . <em>Seeing<em> them, isn't acceptable. This seemed like the appropriate course of action,"

Sherlock, you're babbling.  
>I am aware of that.<br>I appreciate the offer, but to be honest, there's nothing really to add to what you already know about my shooting. There'll be nothing in there that isn't already out in the open between us, so I don't mind you reading it.  
>. . . So offering not to read it was the wrong thing to do?<p>

John rubbed his face wearily with his hand, and put the file down on the table with the others.

"That's not what I said. _Yes_ it was the right thing to do, but-"  
>"'Thanks, but no thanks.' I understand," Sherlock straightened up, pulling on the crisp cuff of his shirt sleeve; readjusting yesterday's clothes to make himself look more presentable. "Well, I shall get ready, I think. Big day today. I'll need you later; we're going to Scotland Yard,"<p>

It was as close to 'good luck' as John was going to get. He smiled affectionately, and shook his head, before leaving the sociopath to shower.

* * *

><p>"What the hell is going on?" John asked in a business-like and angry voice, shutting the door swiftly behind him and striding over to Sherlock, who was sitting facing the wall with his palms pressed together under his chin. His eyes didn't move even slightly when the doctor entered the room. He was too intently focussed on the information plastered all over the walls.<p>

John navigated his way through stacks of stapled documents; the paper gore of disembowelled classified files. He held up his phone with a questioning and frustrated look of confusion, the screen showing Sherlock's text:

_Exercise caution. You are being followed. Use main roads. Do not walk home alone. – SH._

"There's nothing that needs to be said. I wrote exactly what I meant,"  
>"Yes, but <em>how<em>? How did you know?"

Sherlock leapt up, emerging with a substantial effort from his theorising trance and forcing himself into what he privately called gratuitous-explanation-mode. He faced John with a sigh, looking him intently in the eye.

"It's you, John. No one else," His voice was deadly serious, as he offered what he thought to be a suitable full explanation. John, however, didn't agree.  
>"What?" He asked, warily. "I don't-"<br>"Listen," Sherlock cut in, physically holding his hand up to halt his friend's speech. "The military case files are – _were_ in pristine condition when I got round to looking through all of them. But yours was not. It was covered in notes, not unlike the ones you see here-"  
>He waved his hand across the room, spanning across the strewn military papers, which were clouded with post-it notes, with Sherlock's barely legible scrawl dousing them liberally.<br>Notes on the similarities and differences between the cases.

"-It seems Van Coon was trying out his own deductions . . ." The sleuth muttered under his breath, his hands on his hips and a frown gracing his pristine face as he considered the paper that had been pinned to the wall: it was only John's that got the respect of being presented anywhere other than the floor.

"The other cases were nothing _unusual_. Friendly fire. Accidental murder of civilians. Collateral damage, that sort of thing – which, um, is obviously terrible, and should never be covered up illegally and such forth," He added quickly, as John opened his mouth to protest the offhand way in which he talked about massacres. "What you have to understand though, John, is that none of them involved a man taking a bullet for his fellow soldier, and being absolutely fine three minutes and fourteen seconds later. Do you see?" He urged.

"Right," John said, calmly taking stock and summarising, though he still felt pathetically shaken by the casual mention of the worst day of his life. "So . . . What you're saying is that none of the others are to do with – people like us?"  
>"Precisely. They're run-of-the-mill, but I think Van Coon was just waiting for this one to come through. He'd positioned himself just right to be able to intercept it, no questions asked . . ." He muttered to himself, his voice sounding peculiarly impressed at the lawyer's feat. He swept himself out of his reverie once more, to abruptly add: "I don't think he was working alone, though,"<br>"No? - Why not?" John asked, his heart sinking. There were _more _people who were studying him without his knowledge? He'd hoped it was just one solitary nut-job.  
>"Brian Lukis. Freelance journalist. Murdered last night, at midnight by a killer who-"<br>"A killer who could walk through walls," John interrupted, "But – well, sorry, but I'm still a _bit _concerned about someone following me, or whatever it is you're so sure of?"

Sherlock huffed as if it were the most _obvious_ thing in the world.

"I was getting to that. What I'm saying is that Lukis and Van Coon were both involved in _something_. They have a murderer in common, so they _have _to have something else in common too, logically. Whether that _something_ involved you remains to be seen, but from this obsessive annotation . . . I'm inclined, unfortunately, to think you're at the heart of the matter,"

John slumped himself into his favourite armchair – he was sure Sherlock preferred the other one, so he was careful even when weary to not occupy it – and rubbed his face. He stared up with big, nervous eyes at the endless notes that covered it, beginning on the page after his picture, where he hadn't looked before. He felt a little scared at the scrutiny he suddenly found himself under; the case that had so far fallen too close to home; but at the same time, more than a little excited.

"The writing on the case file – it seems like he's assessing your relative merits; considering your entire character and personal connections. Look – I'm on there, too," Sherlock continued, and pointed at a particularly large note.

John squinted, focussing on the slanted writing of the lawyer, in red ink:  
><em>Associateflatmate – one Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective – known affiliations with the police. Nature of relationship subject to change. Noted as 'colleagues' (close?). __**RISK**__._

"'Nature of relationship subject to change'? . . . That's a bit vague. He didn't know as much as he thought he did, obviously," John scoffed. Sherlock smirked, though it was ambiguous. He was happy at John's rebuttal of someone else's deductive abilities compared to his own, but . . . Well, he wasn't sure. He'd have preferred at least '_friends'_.

"But the most interesting thing is, '_**RISK**_' – why is that in bold capitals? What significance does it have, and to whom? What kind of risk? What has it got to do with you and me both? Or, alternatively, is it an acronym?"  
>"What do you think?" John asked, quietly.<br>Sherlock grimaced. John noted how they hadn't exchanged thoughts since he'd gotten home; how Sherlock liked to say his theories out loud, as if it cemented them as correct, providing him with some sense of security. He marvelled at how childish this was; how a genius like Sherlock Holmes could still be superstitious in _some_ way, though he could tell without asking him that he'd scoff at the idea of _luck_, or other 'fairy stories'.

"I can't be exactly sure. But I am certain of one thing – if he is working with someone else, for whatever reason, they'll definitely be following you. He was obsessed, it would seem – the point when I believe he was actually employed by someone to look into you, vigorously. Perhaps . . . Perhaps, his life depended on it . . ." Sherlock trailed off.

John started, opening his hands up suddenly, and leaning forward in his chair, tense and tightly coiled like a spring; only wishing for an answer:  
>"But why?"<br>Sherlock's sullen and apologetic sigh conveyed that his progress hadn't quite reached that far, much to the dismay of the both of them.

"Well then, how can we find out?" John asked desperately.  
>"Don't bother taking your coat off – we're going to Scotland Yard. I can get us into Lukis' flat. I'm certain of it . . ."<p>

Bemused, the doctor watched as the consulting detective tugged on his coat and scarf in record time, swanning out of the door in a flurry of excitement and infectious energy. John stood dumbfounded for a moment, but soon scurried after his friend, grabbing his keys and slamming the front door of the flat. Sherlock was already out of the front door, hailing a cab, but had left it ajar for him.

Oh, and John?  
>What?<br>Thank you for being so incredibly interesting. I couldn't imagine a better flatmate – I will get to the bottom of this for you . . . And about earlier. It was . . . imprudent of me, to behave in such a way.

John's eyebrows ascended to somewhere just short of his brow line, with complete surprise that he'd managed to get something akin to an _apology _from a self-proclaimed sociopath. Actually, he was Sherlock, and apologies were not normal for him, sociopath or not. It was just his state of being to be unapologetic, and to not care what people thought of him. Well, obviously he cared what John thought. _One small step for a man; one giant leap for Sherlock-kind . . . _

A big black taxi pulled up right beside them, and John thought it fortunate that there weren't many silver ones around at the moment. He shuddered to think of them . . . He wondered if Sherlock did, too – after all, he was the one who almost died. John just – _well_, John was _merely_ shot. He got better.

Apology accepted, Sherlock. And thanks again for offering to keep the files private. Although, it would probably have hindered the case in the end . . .  
>Yes – yes, I suppose it would've . . . But it's irrelevant now.<p>

A long pause, as they both climbed into the back of the vehicle, and Sherlock muttered their destination to the driver. He took in a breath, about to say something, when he stopped himself with a frown. John's questioning expression lead him to sigh, and to wince as he asked a question that he knew would reveal him to be slightly clueless.

"It wasn't that bad, was it?" He ventured.  
>"What wasn't?" John asked, providing the eternal prompt always needed by Sherlock, as if he were a perpetually forgetful actor.<br>"The text – did it _really_ shock you?" Sherlock asked, trying and failing to keep the incredulity from his voice.  
>"Well, it did give me a bit of a fright! You have to admit, it's – well, for us <em>everyday civilians<em>, that news could come as quite a shock. I imagine being tailed is a regular occurrence for you . . . Um, no offence,"  
>"Perhaps," Sherlock considered, stroking his chin with his hand, his elbow leant up on the windowpane. "More so if I'm with you. They're effectively tailing us both, as soon as we're together," He reminded John logically. His eyes lingered over the rear-view mirror, distracted, before he smirked and suddenly jerked round to look John full in the face:<br>"But the text had a good result for you, didn't it?" There was an amused glint in his eyes, harmonising with the smile on his face that verged, thought John couldn't quite believe it, on what he'd describe as 'cheeky'.  
>"I'm struggling to see how being followed can be a good thing for me," John asked, warily. It was part statement, part-question, though he didn't want his flatmate to answer. He didn't like 'cheeky' Sherlock. He looked sinister, like a particularly unpleasant clown.<br>"It's not _that_ which was advantageous, though . . . She walked all that way with you, didn't she?" Sherlock told him, the upwards inflection on his voice indicative of a question, though they both knew there was none there to be answered. They both knew the answer already.

John looked down, shaking his head with a smile. It was the same manoeuvre he'd pulled earlier when angry, but with a softer facade, something more akin to embarrassment or happiness; perhaps a mixture of the both. Sherlock's smile spread wider, with the knowledge that yet another one of his deductions had been correct.

"I've got a date with her tomorrow night. I suppose you had to find out eventually," John admitted from in amongst his shroud of rosy-red cheeks. "I could scarcely hide it from you," He conceded, sounding resigned. "And you're . . ." He stopped, wondering how to search in a gentle way for approval from Sherlock, without him realising he was doing so. "I mean, it won't-"  
>"What you do in your spare time is none of my business," Sherlock recited, as if he'd been taught the phrase in full, with only a small inkling as to what it meant; as if he knew the words' individual meanings, but didn't quite understand what they meant when put together. "And no, it won't interfere with the case, that I can <em>foresee<em> – oh, come _on_!"

Not everything is a reference to _this_!  
>Well I'm sorry I don't have the full details on your powers – it's hardly <em>my <em>fault! You _could_ be able to see the future, or even travel in bloody time and space for all I know.  
>Never again. Messes with your body clock, time travel. And <em>I<em> can't see the future.  
>I'm not even going to comment on that. But – it's just this telepathic stuff? Like, the mental conversations, the mind reading?<br>Psychometrics, too. It's where you can find out the complete history of an object or person by touching them. It's a little temperamental, though – it's one of my less refined talents. It didn't work well on the pink suitcase from your first case with me, for example. I'm not always sure why I can't utilise it properly – I'm still working on it.  
>I see . . .<p>

They made their way across London, as the fog eventually rose from the air, and Sarah Sawyer walked back to work after her lunch hour spent taking a walk with a man she'd just interviewed for a job. She smiled to herself, despite the greyness of the oppressive air about her, and the biting cold: it had been worth missing out on her daily sandwich alone at the local coffee shop, because Doctor Watson was the best company she'd had in _months_. A bit forward in his approach, but she liked it. No faffing around. She supposed that's what you got when you agreed to go on a date with a former soldier.


	5. The Foil

**_AN: So . . . Have another chapter. And PLEASE R&R, Because I need to know that you understand this story? Sometimes I forget that other people don't live in my brain and so can't always understand my jumps of logic, flawed as they sometimes are. I DO have a beta to help me with these things, but she pretty much lives in my pocket so we're on the same wavelength :)_**

**_Oh well. Get on with the story, already! And thanks to SharkByOnly for being my beta! _**

_**OH YEAH NEWS! So, there is a chance that there is a fanfic being written about this fanfic, set in the Silver!Verse - a Torchwood crossover. TheFaceOfSacredBob messaged me to ask if she could use this universe, and I said, 'Sure, knock yourself out.' So, keep a weather eye on the horizon for such a thing. I'll let you know, if you're interested. :D**_

_**Happy reading, R&R! - B. **_

* * *

><p>A thick, damp aroma emanated from the dingy, brown-tinted flat of Brian Lukis; so much so that John was stifled by the smell of old books which confronted him, and chose to discretely cover his nose with his sleeve. He dodged renegade police constables, running around the flat, newly invigorated by the news that Sherlock Holmes – the virtually infallible Sherlock Holmes! – thought that this murder was part of a series. Everyone loved a serial killer. Well, aside from Dimmock, who had been tough to win round; aside, obviously, from Edward Van Coon and Brian Lukis.<p>

Sherlock pushed rudely past him, unperturbed, and making a bee-line for the leviathan bookshelf: its looming presence made it the _subject_ of the room, rather than just an object within in. John was mildly surprised that Sherlock didn't want to analyse the specific types of moulds on the wall, as he made his way to the most obvious artefact in the victim's dingy, small flat. He'd presumed he'd go for something more obscure.

The consulting detective snatched up a few of maps, nodding slowly as if he were listening to a coherent argument; their bent corners he ran his gloved thumb across, listening to the flapping noise the pages made as their hit their neighbour with a certain comfort; their stories his listened intently to. His eyes flicked over them, but slowed, his lids drooping momentarily.  
>John observed this behaviour, and decided to distract any officers nearby who would question his friend's sudden lapse in what might be called 'normality' – if the narrator could be trusted not to laugh at the absurdity of Sherlock and John's lives being described as in any way 'normal', in the first place.<p>

"Why all the maps? I thought he was a freelance journalist, not a . . . Geographer?" John grappled with his question, unsure whether most geographers even had use for maps, and feeling especially stupid because he didn't know.  
>"We're not sure. They're not all his, though. Quite a few of them are from the British Library that we've seen," Dimmock replied wearily, casting a doleful eye about the hideously messy surroundings. Everything had a tinge of discolouration in it: it looked like the home of someone terminally ill, and physically unable to tidy up or clean. It was clear he left his flat – to go to the library – but from the pizza delivery boxes strewn about, it seemed like he left for nothing more. Had he been so lazy as to not tidy up after himself, even slightly? Or had he, on the contrary, been so consumed with satisfactorily performing one task that he'd simply neglected anything else in his life? He sensed, with a feeling of resignation, that Sherlock would know.<p>

"What sort of state was he in?" Sherlock asked flatly, still poring over the copious amounts of maps: picking up one, and replacing it haphazardly; repeating the speedy process with countless others.  
>"Dead, Holmes," Dimmock tried his hand at a catty reply. Sherlock didn't even react, other than to offer a scathing retort:<br>"Have you suffered any recent head trauma? I'm beginning to have my suspicions that you are quite obtunded, Dimmock," Sherlock quipped, without even looking up.  
>"Look, does it really matter?" Replied the detective, understanding that he'd just been insulted, but not quite sure <em>how<em>. "Can't you just go to the morgue and abuse that poor woman into letting you-"  
>"Don't need to. Single gunshot to the head is <em>obvious<em>," He replied, baffling John and Dimmock, who had learnt to just accept Sherlock's deductions wordlessly, lest they inflate his ego more. John, obviously, didn't want to bring up the deduction for other reasons: what if it Sherlock hadn't _quite _deduced it? He didn't want to put his friend in a compromising position, and so yet again, was restrained in what he could say or ask out loud.  
>"-But when was his time of death?" Sherlock finished. He still hadn't afforded either of his colleagues eye contact since they had arrived.<p>

He picked up one last map, and opened it carefully. Neither Dimmock nor John could see inside it, but Sherlock looked satisfied with what he saw when he revealed the page it slumped lazily open at.

His gloved hand brushed tenderly on the open page, and his lip curled upwards at the side. However, the expression was strained. The usual glee at the thrill of the chase was hindered – but by what, John couldn't tell, and Dimmock was too unobservant to even notice that there was something wrong. Perhaps, though, it was just because John knew Sherlock better.

"If you want to know if it was after Van Coon, then we can say yes, it was, _definitely_. Just a coincidence he was found, really – the door was just left open. Enough for the landlord to see him when he walked in, and he-"  
>"The door was <em>open<em>?" Sherlock snapped his head up, looking Dimmock in the eye with a corrosive look of what John perceived as . . . Disgust? – But _why_? "No, no . . ." Muttered the sleuth, shaking his head, and shooting a puzzled gaze at Dimmock, as if to tell him he'd gotten something drastically wrong.  
>"Maybe the killer got sloppy," Offered the detective with an exasperated sigh.<br>"No," Sherlock bluntly refused, his brow-line lowering in frustration and confusion.  
>"No?" Dimmock replied in disbelief, craning his neck and wearing a look of dumb incredulity. How could he <em>possibly<em> know?

Sherlock grabbed three books from the shelf, and tucked them under his arm: all maps.

"No, he didn't. The killer _isn't_ sloppy. Door locked from the inside of Van Coon's apartment, with the _appearance_ of an open-and-shut suicide? And he just _happened _to make this massive blundering mistake on this hit? No, of course not-"  
>"It was a hit? . . . You think there's gang involvement?"<br>"I _know_ it. It has organised crime written all over it, Dimmock. Even you should be able to tell that. Consider the evidence: it's meticulous, brutal, thorough, and it's a part of a puzzle that _almost anyone_ couldn't possibly solve, and that many wouldn't even perceive was there in the first place. Hence, the reason they both looked like suicide,"  
>"No, the reason both of them look like suicide is that they <em>are<em>!"  
>"I can guarantee you, Lukis was threatened too. It was the same killer – are you <em>blind<em>, man?"

Dimmock huffed, before trying to pull apart Sherlock's argument once again:  
>"You say the killer's clever and meticulous, but he's just gone and left the door open on his way out!"<br>"He didn't _use_ the door!" Spat Sherlock, whirling around from where he'd been eyeing up the flat once more, and looking at Dimmock straight in the eye with what John had termed his 'death-glare': something which could have made Medusa turn to stone.  
>"Oh? Then how did he get in and out?"<p>

A slight pause. Sherlock marched into the next room, his eyes flicking about.  
>"The skylight, of course! Really, Dimmock, I hadn't even been in here and I knew he'd used them already. Look here – the latch isn't shut properly. It could only be this way if someone had hastily been trying to shut it. For example, if an assassin were trying to make a speedy getaway!"<br>"So, you're telling me that Lukis got shot, and when his killer left, he promptly got up and opened the door, ready to be found?" Dimmock almost yelled, losing the very last of his patience.

"No, someone else opened the door, _obviously_,"  
>Dimmock threw his arms into the air, the disbelief in his voice rising to an unbelievably high level , as he asked, "Why would someone open the door, find a body, and then just leave? No one saw anyone come or go, Sherlock! I'm sure you <em>deduced<em> that already," Dimmock said, though he was more pleading for Sherlock to give him the answer right now than mocking him.  
>He was tired and frustrated, and he needed answers or his headache may just develop into a brain aneurysm, and he'd die then and there, to which Sherlock would probably mutter something infuriating, like '<em>Dull<em>'.

"Because they knew about the hit. They knew about it, but couldn't tell the police, for their own safety . . . We're looking at a rival gang member here, or perhaps a former one with a grudge to bear, or who's suddenly grown a conscience,"  
>". . . You still need to prove they're connected, Sherlock. I'm far from convinced,"<br>"_Obviously_ . . . Lukis was threatened by the gang before his death too, guaranteed,"  
>"Can you <em>prove<em> that?" Asked Dimmock, coming down from his high levels of anger with a cold tone of distain.  
>". . . I'll find it. The threat. I promise you, it'll be in the same cipher as Van Coon's. Then you'll be unable to fight so pointlessly against my accurate theories," Sherlock hissed, like a cat, defensive.<p>

Dimmock sighed, resigned that he wouldn't get anything more out of the sleuth from the way he was striding purposefully to the door with the three maps under his arm.  
>"You can't take those-" He started, but he knew he'd already lost the argument before it began.<br>"They're property of the British Library-" The consulting detective commenced saying, as he put a hand on the front door handle, ready to shut it behind himself and his following companion.

Suddenly, he stopped dead, looking quizzically at the offending handle.  
>He turned around, to where John had almost bumped into him, so abrupt had his stop been. He, too, had a questioning expression: it was catching, it seemed, as he wondered at the confusion in those bright silver eyes.<p>

What is it, Sherlock? . . . What can you see?  
>. . . I . . . I don't –<p>

Sherlock turned back to the handle, and his eyes widened, an expression of almost untameable excitement and fascination lighting up his face like a neon sign.

What?  
>. . . I can't <em>see<em> anything!_  
><em>I understand . . . No, actually, I don't – what do you mean, Sherlock? . . . Sherlock?  
>. . . Interesting . . .<br>Oh, _bloody hell._

* * *

><p>"It's a working hypothesis, John. I can't just go around blurting it out. If I did this with every hypothesis, I'd have seriously offended you right now,"<br>"What? . . . What theories have you had about me that turned out to be incorrect?"  
>"Do you actually want to know?"<br>". . . Probably not,"

Satisfied that he'd distracted John sufficiently with thinking of all the various horrifying theories he could have had about him, Sherlock strode purposefully down the carpeted walkway between two rows of densely-packed bookshelves. The library didn't even smell as thick with musty books as Lukis' apartment had. Even Sherlock had to admit, it had been squalid, to say the least.

You were trying to distract me.  
>Your powers of deduction are growing every day, my friend.<p>

"But what are we _actually_ looking for? I mean, why did you let them take the books? Didn't you need them as a reference to where we should look?"  
>"I knew the floor we should be on,"<br>"But there are thousands of shelves on this floor!" John moaned, holding his arms out as he struggled to keep up with his long-legged associate's lengthy footfalls, to display exactly how expansive the place was. It was true: downstairs it was all glasswork and escalators, with an exhibition about science fiction in a display room next to the entrance which tourists came and went from in their hundreds, but up here . . . Up here, it was all books, all business, all _laborious searching_.

Legwork. John didn't favour it, but he was damn good at it. Better than Sherlock, maybe – not that he'd voice this opinion, for fear of the cutting remarks his friend would make about their comparative levels of intelligence.

"Perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you'd go deeper," Sherlock replied airily, a bland expression on his face, with just a hint of amusement in his eyes and facial features. Not that John could see: he was too busy checking every single row of bookshelves they walked past, while the sociopath blithely strode past all of them with barely a glace.

"What are you going to do? Are you going to use your . . . _Thing_?"  
>"Honestly, John, you make me sound rather 'special'. And, no," He answered unhelpfully.<br>"What are you going to do then?" John asked, beginning to sound just like Dimmock with his rising quotient of frustration.  
>"I'm not going to do anything. The right shelf will jump out at me. All I need to do is wait."<br>"But surely that counts as_ using your thing_?_"  
><em>"Not if I'm not the one that makes it jump out,"  
>"Sherlock, this is maddening. I hate your stupid bloody circular arguments, would you just-"<p>

And with that, John tripped over something that was spectacularly in the way: a large, solid book, of all things. Really, he should have realised there'd be _books_ in a _library_, Sherlock thought, while he watched uselessly as his friend toppled into a wooden shelf, smacking his nose onto it was an awful _crack_.

". . . There it is!" The Sherlock exclaimed, marvelling at the bookshelf John had collided with. "Well done, I almost missed it . . . _Almost_. I knew you'd find it," He purred, stepping over his friend, who was now leaning against the shelf, clutching his nose with one hand and securing his position against the shelf with the other. He whimpered and cursed, though Sherlock ignored him, completely unperturbed.

"The book you tripped over, it's Darwin's Origin of Species," He explained, scanning the books on the shelf in front of him: the highest shelf, at his eye level. "But what would that be doing in the map department? Moreover, what would it be doing on the floor, in such a pristine and well kept library . . . That's strange, I would have thought there'd be something on the shelf – some sort of lead . . ."  
>"It's <em>there<em>," John mumbled, pointing with a bloody hand to the shelf that was at his own eye level, rather than his taller friend's. Sherlock crouched slightly, and clapped his hands in delight.

There it was! The sign he'd promised Dimmock he'd find; the threatening cipher he needed to proceed in the murder inquiry without him casting doubt that the murders were connected at every turn. Excellent!

"Perfect! Thank you, John. Admittedly I'd have found it eventually, but all the same, it was nice to have your . . . Assistance . . ."

He turned and looked at John, whose nose pain was subsiding. He really was a very poor judge of pain, though, as he'd lost track of which injuries equalled what amount of pain a long time ago.  
>Even so, he frowned, confused when confronted with Sherlock's grimacing visage.<p>

"You've . . . You've got-"  
>He indicated John's nose vaguely. John put his fingers up to his nose, and realised the problem: it was broken. Bone under the skin was contorted and dislodged, not meeting correctly with its corresponding shattered counterpart . . . It was a miracle there wasn't more blood! He'd managed to mop up the small amount he'd got on the shelf with some tissues, as well as the small amount on his face.<p>

"Oh," John replied. ". . . You might want to look away . . .?"  
>"Don't be an idiot," Sherlock dismissed simply. John didn't notice the genuine concern in his flatmate's eyes, because he was concentrating on resetting his own nose.<p>

John took a firm grip on his nose between his thumb and index finger, with the middle finger for support, and mentally counted down: _three . . . two . . . one . . ._

_Click_.

"Oww-fuck-owww. . .!"  
>Sherlock interpreted the groaning complaint from John at the sharp pain as a good sign: he'd probably managed to get his nose back into the correct position – surely, he had?<p>

John removed his hand from his face, wiping the blood away with one of his last tissues, as he looked up at Sherlock once more. The sleuth witnessed the minor contours under the skin of John's nose begin to rumple and slide, healing over, and moving back to where they should be. In a few seconds, while still a little blood-stained, John's nose was perfect, as normal . . . Only in that, it was John's nose, and John's nose was John's nose, so it was perfect for its job as John's nose, not perfect in any other way, like to look at, or, or to touch, or –

There it was again, that twitch that meant Sherlock couldn't quite keep himself from drawing closer to John. The silence from the library was deafening, as the consulting detective smoothly closed in, unknowingly edging towards John's face, their eyes level, as he studied the nose's progression back to pristine normality. John stood rigid, still as a statue, as was becoming the norm whenever he hurt himself in front of Sherlock, and the other man just couldn't _resist_ a closer look – or touch . . .

"Err . . . Sherlock?"  
>". . . Mmm . . .?"<br>". . . Have I got any blood on me?"

Sherlock snapped out of his fascinated gaze, and took at his phone, turning away all of a sudden. He flourished theatrically, taking a picture of the symbols for later: strangely, there were no books on the shelf, and it was just there – in plain sight.  
>"Go to the toilet, there'll be a mirror. Clean yourself up," Sherlock replied.<br>"What are you going to do?" John asked with a slight frown of concern.  
>Sherlock turned to him, both eyebrows raised, as if he didn't understand why John wasn't as thrilled with the discovery as he was.<p>

You don't get it yet, do you?  
>Get what?<br>I'll explain back at Baker Street. I have some _serious_ investigation to do.

"I'm going to take this book out, that's what," He said, scooping up the copy Darwin's Origin of Species under his arm.  
>"But you already own it, don't you?" John pressed. Sherlock grinned, eyeing the copy in his hands lovingly.<br>"Not this copy . . . Now, hurry up and get cleaned up. We'll never get a cab with you covered in blood – I think I'll have a good look at the exhibit while I wait for you, too. I always did like science fiction, as a child -That is, before I started _living_ it . . ."

* * *

><p>"So, the cipher was left there for Lukis, to tell him-"<br>"To _warn_ him, that he was a dead man. They knew he'd visit the map section, and so they left it there. There's no mistaking it: it was the same gang as Van Coon, definitely. They were both embroiled in this, somehow, but what's _more_ interesting is . . ."  
>". . . Is?" John encouraged.<p>

Sherlock paced, his hands clasped behind his back, unable to remain still even for a second. Suddenly, he turned, his silver eyes burning – or, more accurately, freezing –through John, who remained serenely, calmly still in his armchair.

"Are you sure you're ready?" Asked the sleuth; John observed that the question was clunky, like a car suddenly stalling: it was unnatural, and he came to realise that Sherlock had only said it because he'd been burned before by saying the wrong thing, or something too shocking, in the past. He hid his affectionate smile beneath his interested expression, and beneath his striped teal mug. He answered in annoyed tones, though he wasn't really that annoyed. He just didn't enjoy Sherlock knowing more than he did, and talking in such a pompous manner.

"Yes, Sherlock, I'm ready," He sighed.  
>"Well, listen carefully, because I'm only explaining one time," Sherlock cautioned, biting his lip.<br>"Yes, I know! Just get on with it already! I know you're dying to show off," John teased, though Sherlock remained deadly serious. He was afraid John would think he was joking if he even so much as slipped out from full concentration on the case for _one second_.

"There is-" Sherlock began, but then stopped, throwing his hand to his face, and squeezing it, bringing it down and to his hip once more with stressed uncertainty. "Well, I am 99.98% sure that . . ." He placed the other hand on his other hip, his nervous behaviours equally endearing and grating to John, in his state of heightened anxiety.  
>"That <em>what<em>?" The doctor snapped.  
>"That we are searching for an invisible man," Sherlock finished quickly, holding out a hand in a wild gesture that said <em>do you see<em>?

". . . You mean he's not real?" John asked warily with a frown, not wanting to misunderstand, but at the same time in his heart of hearts knowing what Sherlock truly meant, and still not wanting to believe it.  
>"No, no – he's as real as you or I – um, well, perhaps that's a bad example, if you count the abnormally large amount of surreal happenings that go on in a sample of an average day in the life of you or I-"<br>"An invisible man?" Prompted John, his eyebrows climbing his face from the dark frown he originally fostered, right up to the shocked and wide-eyed disbelief he was now exhibiting.  
>"Correct," Sherlock nodded curtly.<br>"The killer?"  
>"No. The foil,"<br>"Foil?"  
>"Yes. If you recall, I did mention a rival or former gang member that had left the door to Lukis' apartment open. Do you see?"<br>"Honestly? . . . Maybe. Well, no. Well-"  
>"I'm inclined to the latter," Sherlock butted in with an explanation, striding to the window, breath fogging in front of him and clouding his vision inevitably, yet infuriatingly. His pale fingers pressed up against the glass, as he rested his forehead against the cool pain. He really felt, at times like this, that his hard drive would overheat and John would be treated to a liberal spray of grey matter and black curls all over his favourite hideous beige jumper.<p>

"A former gang member, you mean?"  
>"Precisely. Think, John – who would know about Lukis' involvement in the gang, while at the same time knowing that he'd be threatened? <em>Knowing<em> that he'd be killed, and when. It had to be someone with an intimate knowledge of how the gang worked. Someone who could read this infernal cipher . . ." He waved a long arm towards the small wall collage he'd made next to the one of John's file: it was the yellow characters, from the bank and the library. "More importantly, someone who wanted to lead us to the killer. Someone with a grudge, or who – like I said before – had suddenly acquired a conscience. Could be someone old – retired, and wanting to repent . . . But equally, someone young, who had been pushed into it from an early age and has only just escaped the lifestyle, with vengeance on their mind . . . So many options. So many possibilities – It's _maddening_!" He hissed, like a release of air at high-pressure.

"Wait. You're missing the most important part. The 'foil' is _invisible_?"  
>"Not all the time, obviously," Sherlock drawled in a bored monotone, his silver eyes flitting about the street below, deducing everything about passersby just for a bit of light relief.<p>

"_Invisible_, Sherlock!" John persisted, knowing that the sleuth liked to tell his theories out loud, rather than via thoughts. He liked to think the consulting detective cemented their validity by saying them out loud. What must he have done before he'd met John? Talked to DI Lestrade – or even, talked to _himself_? That must have been maddening . . . Then again, he knew what it was like to have things you simply couldn't talk to anyone about.

"Of course he's bloody _invisible_! Did you see him put that book out in front of you to trip you up, and lead us to the symbols they'd left for Lukis at the library? Did you see him clear the shelf of books, so we could see the cipher written plainly?"  
>"No, I didn't, but you can't prove-"<br>"Never ignore a coincidence, John. There are a million parallel possibilities in everything we do, and the manner of life is so random that it's very rare that they should coalesce without some form of intention. Consider this: the door at Lukis' flat,"  
>"Yeah – I saw you give it an odd look,"<br>"Quite. It was left open so the landlord could see it, and not out of luck. I knew it was the invisible man who opened it, because when I touched the lock, I saw its history. This _history_ included it being unlocked from the outside by some invisible hand. I couldn't _see_ him . . . But I saw the key drop to the floor, suddenly becoming visible, when he let go of it. I'm right . . . I'm _sure _of it!"

"So . . . An invisible man," John clarified with a steady voice, containing the shock behind his voice. He sipped his tea, which at this temperature could sooth his head, despite the mental 'heavy lifting' he was undergoing.

This case had a specific bent about it . . . There was him, there was the invisible man, there was the killer who the press had been eager to report could 'walk through walls' . . . All spectacularly _gifted_, but each not without their own _special _troubles, it seemed.  
>"Where do we begin?" He inquired at last. Sherlock's fish-hook smile flourished, while John remained unaware: he <em>knew <em>the ex-army doctor couldn't resist a challenge, with the possibility of danger. This would be no exception: an offer he couldn't refuse, being John.

". . . I think I know," Sherlock slowly turned around, and peered at his desk. Outside, the afternoon drew to a close; their day was far from over, John knew, as silver eyes graced the copy of Darwin's Origin of Species mischievously.


	6. ShadowBoxing

**_AN: . . . Come here often? _**

_**Ahem. Anyway. So . . . Another chapter. Not that long, I don't think, so sorry! Not much to say other than that, aside from the usual: T for violence (maybe?), I don't own/make money from Sherlock or any of its characters. Well, I always forget to say that, so I suppose the fact I remembered is . . . Good. **_

_**PLEASE review. Just, because. I am vain. I know it, too. Oh well. Enjoy! - B. **_

* * *

><p>"Watch where you're–!" Sherlock snapped at the stranger he'd just blundered into, as he held Darwin's Origin of Species aloft and tried to get an accurate reading from it. This street- <em>definitely<em> this street . . . "– John?"

"Yes, _me_," John replied testily, picking himself up. He'd dropped a small book onto the floor, scattering several hundred tiny pieces of paper onto the floor. He scooped them up, shoving them back into the pages of the book with annoyance, though most of them had on them nothing more than unintelligible scribbles, long forgotten by their deceased owner.

"Lukis' diary," Sherlock deduced, though that would have been obvious to even someone as unobservant as John.  
>"Yup," John agreed, holding the item without relish in his right hand. It smelled like a diluted version of the musty grime that coated most of Lukis' flat. He grimaced, as Sherlock frowned and asked him:<br>"Why did you follow me here? You're supposed to be following Lukis' footsteps, _I'm _investigating the invisible man, seeing as I'll be able to hear him coming-"  
>"Alright! Keep your voice down!" John cringed, in response to his colleague's announcement of their supernatural case to the general public. "I <em>am<em> following Lukis' footsteps. I asked the secretary, too – Van Coon's, like you asked me to – she didn't know where he'd gone for a brief window of time before he died. Looks like he got a taxi to about here, and so did Lukis, on their respective last days," John explained.

Sherlock looked about the street in a manner not unlike a meerkat: tall, proud, and furtive in his eyes' movement.

The Lucky Cat, you say?  
>Well, I didn't <em>say <em>anything, but-  
>Don't get bogged down on the technicalities if you don't want <em>me<em> to too. I could go into massive detail about how I used the book to get to this street, but I shan't because it'd earn me no joy from you. Do you see?  
>Just bloody get on with it. Shall we?<br>After you.

They made their way to the Lucky Cat Emporium, and stepped inside the shop: the air was thick with incense; there was a warmth and sweet smell in the air that John found comforting after coming in from the cold, windy day outside. He took a look around: he was surrounded by tiny pots, antiques, and above all, lucky cat statues with rictus grinning faces and bobbing paws.

Sherlock hadn't even registered his surroundings.

Something traumatic happened here.

Something big, some big memory, some big, a, some, thing –

_The middle of the day. Someone turns the 'OPEN' sign round to say 'CLOSED', despite the busy lunch hour outside. This shop is not for retail. This shop is a drop off point. For information, judging by the way a covert conversation is being held in hushed yet urgent tones at the counter.  
>". . . I can't. The last – I can't. The others were easy to persuade to come to you, but this one . . . There's no way. I mean, Lukis can find him all he likes with his freaky little map . . . <em>Thing_, but it still doesn't change the fact: the man has links with the police. I thought that maybe he'd come on board at first. When I first looked into him, he was basically alone – he had a little family, but they weren't close- an alcoholic sister. No real friends.  
>"But then there was this other guy. Someone my boss knows – if you'll excuse the word 'boss', in the loosest sense of the word, I mean – he moved in with him. A flat on Baker Street, I can tell you, without involving Lukis. They seem close – really close, actually. But the point is that he'll never leave him. There's no way he'll get involved,"<br>"That's not your place to decide, Mr. Van Coon. That's for us to dictate. You have one job: convince him to speak with us, at least. You'd best not neglect it. You know Sian doesn't appreciate apologies in place of failure,"  
>"There's no way I could succeed,"<br>"So you're refusing?"  
>"No, it's just that-"<br>"You have a day to send him our way. We don't like to be kept waiting,"  
>"But I can't! He's trouble – seriously . . . You can get Lukis involved, and he'll say exactly the same thing, when he finds him – incontrovertibly loyal and self-sacrificing. You won't find a man harder to turn,"<br>"Lukis cannot confirm your story. And once again, you speak as if you believe it your task alone to convince him to join up. You fail to realise who is in control here,"  
>"Wait – why can't Lukis help?"<br>"Lukis is . . . Indisposed. He's no longer in our employment, and we shan't be hearing from him after this last case,"  
>". . . You're going to kill him. You're going to kill him, aren't you?"<br>"We prefer to think of it as 'decommissioning' him. He's too dangerous and useful for anyone else to possess, as an asset. His purpose has been served; he knows too much. Please, Mr. Van Coon, do try and understand. You weren't close – be calm,"  
>"No! I won't! Because you know exactly what it means if Lukis is being killed?"<br>". . . I don't-"  
>"It means they're done. They're almost done, aren't they? They don't need me anymore, after this last one. What happens to me after that?"<br>"Well, after the small matter of the traitor has been dealt with, we'll pay you, Mr. Van Coon, and let you know if we require you to encourage anyone else into our ranks. We'll proceed to put our plans into action,"  
>"No, no – I see. I see! I can't just walk away now, can I? I know <em>everything_! Everything! I could undo you if I wanted with one phone call . . . I didn't sign up for this. I thought this was going to be a continuous thing. A bit of extra work on the side! But no, you're shutting up shop, moving out, and tying up the loose ends . . . Tell me I'm wrong!"  
>"Good afternoon, Mr. Van Coon. You can expect . . . Payment, very soon . . ."<em>

". . . –kay, Sherlock? – What's wrong? . . . Can you hear me?"

His pupils had dilated to become two deep, colourless black chasms, covering nearly his entire irises; he knew as much too, because the light around him, muted though it was, was all too much for him to handle. He gripped John's right shoulder, after finding the doctor standing beside him and shaking him lightly by the shoulders; asking him to respond. It had been quite a long memory, actually . . . A few minutes of conversation . . .

"Sherlock?" John whispered tentatively, trying not to draw the attention of the woman behind the counter, who was very particularly wrapping several terracotta bowls in black tissue paper, minding her own business. The affair hadn't been that obvious, except to John, who had been thinking loudly at Sherlock for a minute or so with no response, before realising that his flatmate behind him had frozen mid stride. It had been like watching a computer crash.

". . . Dinner?" Sherlock asked, suddenly glaring down at John, though it was a triumphant expression rather than inquisitive as it had been when he'd entered the shop. John could only guess at what the hell Sherlock had pulled that little stunt for. He was in no mood for his histrionics today; he was hoping that, at least, he wouldn't miss his date with Sarah tomorrow night because of this bloody case.  
>"I was just saying, Sherlock – look!"<br>And Sherlock did look: at the symbols, the _numbers_, stuck to the bottom of the ceramic pots that the shop sold in vast quantities.

Hang Zhou numerals. How did I not see this before?  
>Yeah, how could you have been so stupid. Of <em>course<em> it was Hang Zhou numerals . . .  
>This is no time for sarcasm, John! <em>The numbers<em>!

Sherlock strode purposefully out of the shop, stopping in the middle of the busy market street, looking all around, twitching and blinking deliberately. He was a man on a mission, now: he felt closer than he'd ever been to solving this case, and he could almost taste victory, if only he could select the correct _flat_ for his mystery foil!

He began at the first door to his left, putting his hand on it briefly, innocuously; John sighed: "Didn't you mention something about dinner? I'm starving! I haven't eaten since before my job interview!" He complained, following the rocketing sleuth down the street, and lamenting that the sunset was coming to pass without the sun ever having seen him eat today. His stomach groaned, as he watched Sherlock appear to determine his target: a small flat door, next to an alleyway that lead, eventually, to the next street.

"Look, John! Telephone directory, wet with condensation and rain: clearly, the owner hasn't been here for days – and . . ."

No memories on this door. Well, memories of it opening, late at night, while no one is around; no one walking through it, before it shuts on its own. This is _it_!  
>Wait – the invisible man? You think he lives <em>here<em>?  
>Precisely. Come on –<p>

Sherlock swept round the corner into the alleyway, which, while retaining some of the murmurs of light the day's wake had left it with, was growing darker by the second. The street lamp in the comfort of the populated bustling street flickered on, shining red above the heads of the happy shoppers below.

"Sherlock!" Cried John, as the sleuth jumped up and grabbed the ladder to the flat's fire escape. "How do you know he won't be in there?"  
>"I don't – we <em>are<em> looking for him, remember. We need to find him soon, or he'll escape, and our best lead will be dead in the water," Sherlock called down. He didn't beckon John to follow him; didn't hold the ladder for him, instead letting it swing back up into its original position just before John arrived beneath it. It was way too high for him to pull down on his own.

Sherlock! Come back right now and let me in!  
>Hush, John – I'm trying to pick a lock. It's not as easy as I make it look, you know.<br>_What if he's in there?_ I assume he won't take to well to having his house broken into!  
><em>There<em> we go! – And don't worry, I can look after myself.  
>Yeah, because the case with the cabbie made that so <em>abundantly clear<em>!  
>That was one instance, John. I hardly think I'll put myself in danger like that again . . . This is a woman's flat . . . Our invisible man is an invisible <em>woman<em>!  
>Great. Fan-bloody-tastic – <em>really.<em> Anyway, here's an idea – how about letting your _immortal ex-soldier friend_ come with you into dangerous situations, hmm?  
>Again with the sarcasm! Lack of food really does affect you, doesn't it?<br>Yes! Me, along with 99.99% of people on planet Earth!  
>. . . Someone's been here before me.<br>What do you-  
>Shh. Don't think, don't move – I need to listen . . .<p>

John had, by this time, walked around to the front of the building, and, after a brief stint looking through the letter box in sheer frustration at his own uselessness, had taken a position leaning against the wall outside. He'd folded his arms, to maintain the little warmth he had, and had tried not to make any external signs that he was having a conversation with the voice in his head. After all, other people didn't know it was Sherlock in there – what if they just thought he was some weirdo? . . . Too late. He had died more times than he had remembered, and was best friend with a consulting-detective-telepath. 'Weirdo' didn't cut it, he thought with a smile and a shake of the head, looking down despite his anger.

I said _stop thinking_! Will you be _quiet_?  
>Alright, <em>your majesty<em>! Contrary to what you believe, it is hard for people who aren't geniuses to stop thinking, too . . . I can't believe you, though. Why won't you let me _in_? 'Oh, I'm Sherlock Holmes, and I work alone because no one else can compete with my _massive intellect!_'

At that moment, an ear-splitting inhuman yowl echoed across the street, ricocheting from the brick walls, flying over market-stalls, reverberating against scaffolding poles and into the greying pink sky above.

John's hands flew to the sides of his head,

_**Still here, air, hands, rough, clench, shadows, hands – **_

and he could manage nothing less base than grinding the heels of his palms into his temples; gritting his teeth,

_**Grip, dark, constricting, air, shadows, air – **_

swaying with the pain of how loud the noise had been. It echoed, it lingered, and it repeated, though less loud this time; somehow, more desperate.

John turned around, hitting his head on the wall, as if the repeated motion could clear it of the blood-curdling scream,

_**I'm going to die, air, tired, dying, tight, I'm dying, shadows, air, air, air, air – **_

squeezing his eyes shut. It was so loud he couldn't even hear it properly,

_**This is it – the shadows – air – **_

but as it grew slowly weaker, he could make out:

_**JOHN! **_

"Sherlock!" Replied John, opening his eyes, and grappling for the door handle, desperately kicking at it. If his mind had been working normally, he would have known the _exact_ procedure for kicking the door in, but in his frenzied state he couldn't do anything but thump at the wood with two ineffectual fists. He didn't care if he bruised them, because he could hear Sherlock Holmes in danger, and he would be damned if he'd let his best friend die on him.

The screaming stopped, though maybe it hadn't been there in the first place. Though it had been horrifying while it lasted, the terror was more intense now that silence reigned. He beat loudly on the door, although he suspected there would be no answer, and was right. He felt a strange sensation . . . Like a wave of negative emotion, that he didn't think was anything to do with Sherlock, strangely . . . The shadows seemed to twitch on the concrete, bathed in dramatic twilight as if to mock the seriousness of both the sensation and the situation.

Shadows . . . ?

He shouted Sherlock's name through the letterbox, not caring much for the repercussions of making it look even more like they were housebreaking to the lessening number of people in the street.

From the corner of his eye, a movement; cold, seeping shivers . . .

"Sherlock . . .?" John called defeated through the letterbox, his voice slightly broken. There was no reply. A movement in the shadows indicated that someone was there. A trick of the light made it look like shadows spewed out of the letterbox's shadow, down onto the pavement; it looked like smoke, casting charcoal black onto his face with a five-o'clock shade. The black smoke curled as if he were in a film noir scene, but sadly there was no sign saying 'Private Eye'.

The door swung open.

"Oh for goodness sake! I thought you were hurt! I thought-!" Protested John, but couldn't finish. The floury-white features of his friend took his breath and thoughts away, and he couldn't comprehend what had happened before Sherlock was away, and he had to follow. _What else was there to do?_

Sherlock's shaded face – completely desaturated of colour from his silver eyes to his black hair to his shadowy white skin – kept looking down as he strode out into the street, looking sickly and cold while simultaneously flustered. His hands were in his pockets, and John couldn't get him to speak. Was the shaking in his head, or was it actually real . . . ?

". . . Are you-?" He ventured, reaching out but not wanting to touch the sleuth.

Sherlock shook his head. His eyes looked slightly vacant: any vacancy was strange enough, so John persisted:  
>"You look like you've seen a ghost,"<br>The real ghost was Sherlock's smile: it faltered and faded, twitching slightly in the darkness. John appealed to his professional thoughts rather than his personal, to try and win him round:  
>"Alright, alright – where next? Did you find anything in there? – Any clue? A name?"<p>

That did it. Sherlock took a deep breath as they headed down the street towards the main road, and explained:  
>"Her name is Soo Lin Yao. She works for the British Museum, in the department of Chinese artefacts – I was able to gather that she has taken refuge there, hiding and continuing her restoration work on several projects covertly after dark. Obviously, her latent abilities help her to perform these tasks, but what's more interesting is . . . She knew to hide. She knew her cards were marked, and she didn't dare go into her flat again after collecting the bare essentials. She knew if she went in, she'd fall into a trap . . ."<p>

". . . What happened to you?" John questioned after allowing the gentle hum of background noise to set in.  
>"I fell into the trap. Thankfully, he-" Sherlock caught himself. "I wasn't the intended target. He attacked, and he left. But I think he knew I was trouble. He left me this," He handed John a tiny black paper origami rose – no, no – a <em>lotus<em>. John gave a low whistle.  
>"Exactly," Sherlock muttered in response. "We need to solve this, and soon. He . . . He's dangerous,"<br>". . . What kind of dangerous?" John prompted with a stony expression. If he'd scared Sherlock, he had to be the stuff of nightmares. A complete monster. A tough adversary, that he wanted to be prepared to face when they inevitably encountered him once more.

"It's reminiscent of – well, when you are a child, you find yourself afraid of the dark. Or rather, the creatures that are lurking within it that you cannot see . . . He's in the shadows, John. I don't know if you saw him leave: he appears to become an incorporeal shadow at will, and to constrict the windpipe of those he wishes to attack, and kill. It was fortunate he realised he had the wrong person, or else I would have most certainly been killed," Sherlock told John frankly, trying to brush over his near-death experience with a nonchalant attitude.

"Sherlock!" John chastised, huffing. "Didn't I _say_? You should have let me in!"  
>"What could you have possibly done? Shadow-boxing is a fool's sport. There's nothing you can fight a shadow with-"<br>"Aside from light," John pointed out, and then lowered his voice to a secretive volume: "And besides, I could have at least been the one attacked. Who cares if _I_ die? I'll be back in a few minutes!"

Sherlock drew himself up to his full height, looking as if he were tensing slightly, and seemingly over-frantically surveying the street they'd reached for a cab. He hailed one with an ease that was a marvel to John.

Does it bother you?  
>I'm not sure what you're referring to.<br>The way I put myself in front of you? Sherlock, mate, it's nothing personal. I'm not saying you're incapable of protecting yourself, because I _know_ you're not, it's just that – you're _mortal_, to be honest.  
>It's a little disconcerting, though, to see someone so eager to die for another person, with such a carefree attitude.<br>I'd just come back. It's no skin off my nose! Listen, you're going to have to try a lot harder if you want to get rid of me.  
>The point still stands. Bear with me, John, for I'm still relatively new to your particular version of abnormality – and I'm not as easily accepting of others as you are of me – I apologise.<br>No need to say sorry. Just bloody _let me in next time_!

Sherlock sighed as they arrived at the pavement, and looked at John sincerely for a moment. The doctor was looking up at him with such a look of seriousness . . .

They both burst out laughing.

"Get in the cab, you silly sod," John gestured the black vehicle that had just pulled up, shaking his head with a smile. They couldn't easily stay angry at each other for long, as this morning's fight had shown. They must have looked odd to any passers by paying attention to them, though: two men, occasionally looking at each other, their expressions changing by the second, before suddenly simultaneously bursting out with laughter.

_Oh well_, John thought. _As is life with the world's only consulting detective. _

"Where to?" Asked the cabbie, turning around slightly as John slammed the door shut after following Sherlock into the cab.  
>"The British Museum," Sherlock informed him.<br>"It'll be shut by now," Warned the cabbie with an apologetic lilt in his voice. Sherlock smirked.  
>"Don't worry. We're not going for the exhibits. We're going to meet someone,"<p>

Right now? Sherlock, I have work tomorrow, and it's getting late enough!  
>That's the point. Night is when she's active. We're going to catch her in the act . . .<p> 


	7. The Wasteland

**_AN: Hello hello hello. It is I. _**

**_So, this is un-beta'd because me and my beta split because of artistic reasons. _**

**_. . . LOL jk I'm totally joking :') _**  
><strong><em>She's just really busy ;) <em>**  
><strong><em>Anyway, if you spot any errors, PLEASE don't hesitate to drop me a line! Also, you know, drop me a line if you liked it, have any thoughts or criticisms, etc. . .<em>**

**_Warnings for . . . Violence? Yeah, violence. Character death, sort of. But that's kind of par for the course in Silver!Verse. _**

**_Thanks, as always! A bit long, this one, I think. - B. _**

* * *

><p>"So, what's the plan then? Split up and search for clues?"<br>"Quiet!" Sherlock shushed, putting a finger hastily to his lips and whisking around to face John suddenly, exasperation and frustration etched onto his marble face. John winced, tensing up at his lapse in remembrance of exactly what it was they were doing. Getting in had been such a chore – picking the locks, disarming the alarms, and slipping under cover of darkness into the Chinese artefacts exhibit, indeed! – that he'd forgotten that, when in, there was a possibility of getting caught. There was a night-watchman out front, though as they'd already managed to slip past him once, John doubted his proficiency. There really couldn't be much chance he'd hear their voices all the way back in the reception: they were far, far away by now.

Oops. Sorry!  
>You may as well have let a herd of elephants in here! Be more cautious, would you? We're trying to maintain the element of surprise.<br>Alright, alright! – You're not the only one who's on edge. What if we get caught? This is breaking and entering, technically!  
>We've got police clearance, <em>technically<em>.  
>Since when?<br>Yet again, I'll refer you to _five seconds ago _when I mentioned the 'element of surprise'! If we were to get a warrant to search the place, the blithering idiots at the Yard would come in here, loudly blundering about and giving her plenty of notice to pack up and leave, slipping from between our fingers _yet again_. However, if we _were_ caught, we could easily justify our actions.  
>What, as searching for an invisible woman in a museum after dark? Sherlock, behave!<br>Obviously we wouldn't tell the _truth_. I can fabricate something about the code – information that can only be found here. That's an unlikely contingency, anyway.

Sherlock strode purposefully down the high-roofed corridor they wee walking across, torch shining up to the galleries above where rows of books and exhibits stared back at them, as if longing to be viewed.

. . . I see. Anyway, my earlier question - ?  
>The answer is no. Because I'm the only one who can hear her, and because I'm fairly certain she's an ex-gang member, it'd be well for me to have my Watson with me. And by my 'Watson', of course, I mean <em>immortal ex-soldier friend<em>.

John sighed. He was being mocked, for wanting to keep Sherlock safe earlier. Well, if that was how he was going to be about it, he could bloody well search into the dead of night for an invisible woman _himself_–!

But when he looked up at his friend, who was pacing in front of him, his flashlight a yellow bur on the porcelain antiques displayed in glass cases, he saw that he was smiling affectionately back at him. Less of a mockery, then, than a gentle tease.  
>He sighed once more: perhaps he would never fathom the knife-edge temper of Sherlock bloody Holmes.<p>

Okay, okay. Sorry for being _concerned_. But seriously, what are we going to do?  
><em>I'm <em>going to locate her. In somewhere as empty as this, it'll be nothing. I'll hear her, as long as we maintain radio silence for a bit. Is that okay?  
>Of course – having you in my head all the time can get rather tiring.<br>That was a lie . . . _Interesting_ . . .  
>Just bloody get on with it.<p>

John watched, as the sleuth stood entirely still, pressing the torch into his chest for him to take. He took it without looking away, as he came up behind his friend, circling round him to get a better view. He watched as Sherlock's eyes closed, his skin luminescent in the tiny amount of moonlight that flooded in through the skylights. He moved his fingers up to his temples, serenely contacting them with the soft skin they found there.

This serenity was soon lost. He could have sworn he'd seen the detective jerk and twitch, his eyes fluttering about beneath their lids – or was that a trick of the light? Either way, the gloved hands took clumps of his hair, snatching them and tugging them with grotesque concentration, contorting idyllic facial features like a surrealist portrait.

_You can't hide from me_. _  
>You shouldn't hide from me.<br>I can stop them. We can stop them.  
>. . . You can't hide from me . . . <em>

His eyes sprang open, and he gruffly pushed John out of the way, grabbing his torch once more, and ignoring his previous soft inquiries as to whether he was 'okay' or not.  
><em>No I'm not okay, John, I have to find her!<em>

It was like an itching fever, making his bitingly cold body hellishly hot, seizing him mentally and thrusting him forward, until there was running and only running forevermore. He heard distant calls, but they were all ten-thousand leagues under the sea.

He'd left him behind, again, with a vague call:  
>"Sorry – can't – just, keep watch!" It was slurred and probably unhelpful, but the level of concentration he required to hear her whispers scarcely allowed for multi-tasking, so it was a small mercy that he could even make an utterance at that moment. He'd broken his promise to stay with John already . . . It was unavoidable, in this case. John could look after himself. <em>Who would look after Sherlock<em>? What? Since when have you needed looking after?

_6__th__ December. _I don't need this now. I'm trying to find her. _It was the 6__th__ December_. Don't move, don't _speak_ –

He flew up marble stairs, five at a time; along a corridor of antique skulls, down another set of mahogany stairs, through the double doors. All the while, his torchlight flashed into front of him, lighting his immediate path with the immediacy of streetlamps being passed by a train. He trod on that patch of light over and over, a winking yellow beacon of hope as he bundled into a restoration room . . .

_Got you_.

He stopped abruptly, silent all of a sudden. Whispers had erupted into screams, as he noticed that the only other doors out of the room were locked with a padlock.

Checkmate.

Slowly, pointedly, he backed towards the door he'd entered through, holding it shut and locking it from the inside without turning around. There was no escape. It was just him, locked in a room, with an invisible woman. He raised his torch beam painstakingly slowly upwards, and across the room, barely breathing the entire time lest he miss some vital audible clue as to her position.

. . . _There. _The tiny refraction of the direct light was ever so slight: you wouldn't have seen it if you hadn't been looking for it, and if the light hadn't been so concentrated a beam. Being invisible is not a matter of changing one's state, but of manipulating light. He'd hoped desperately that this knowledge would mean the trick with the torch would work, and it had . . .

He paced, ever so slowly, towards the spot when he predicted she stood, stock still, paralysed with fear.

He reached out, but withdrew his hand suddenly, his facial expression solemn and sincere. Yet, when he spoke, he did so ever so softly:  
>"I think it's time we met face to face, Soo Lin Yao,"<p>

I rippling spectrum of light flashed downwards in front of him, as her visage became at once present in the room. She was shaded in darkness, but Sherlock reached up and clicked on one of the bar lights that hung over an examination desk, where a set of artisan teapots sat, temporarily abandoned. He saw her at last.

Her dark-brown eyes shone with the gleam of the moon on a dark and calm sea, staring up at him, at last unable to hide. She was small in frame, which surprised him: why would a gang want to hire such a small person? Well, actually, it was obvious. Aside from her obvious physical prowess, she had the delicate features of a model or a dancer, though her muscles appeared well-formed beneath her long sleeves. Sherlock noted with interest these features with interest.

He wasn't to be fooled by her display of fragility: Soo Lin Yao was a dangerous woman.

"Where is he?" She asked in hushed tones, her eyes wide and searching behind him.  
>"Where's who?" Sherlock frowned.<br>". . . You _are_ Sherlock Holmes, aren't you?" She pressed with an exasperated whisper.  
>"Of course," He replied swiftly, wanting to move on, but she took out a slip of paper from the back pocket of her trousers.<br>". . . No, see – 9 mil . . . 9 mil-" She stammered, the creased paper shaking in her hands as she frantically read something from it. However, she seemed panicked; she wasn't making sense, and Sherlock needed some answers urgently, as if they were a bodily need.  
>"You left the door open, didn't you? For the landlord to find Lukis' apartment? – You helped me find the symbols at the library?"<p>

Her silence was confirmatory. He scanned the room, his eyes doing a victory lap of his surroundings. _Yes_. Now . . . Motive?  
>". . . You want revenge, don't you? You want to atone? To stop them? " He persisted, but her reply was uttered absent-mindedly as she examined and re-examined the paper.<br>"The Black Lotus – yes, I was part of the tong, if that's what you're getting at – I heard what they were doing and I wanted to stop them. They can't be allowed to assimilate, to gather all they wish to. They-"

She looked up, to see Sherlock's face puzzled and stormy: though he knew a few of the details, his deductions had fallen short of explaining exactly what she was saying.

"I'm only going to explain once, Mr. Holmes – and only because you won't have a chance of finding and stopping them if I don't,"  
>"Please, enlighten me," Sherlock urged. There was a fearful symmetry in between the two of them: their heart rates elevated in unison. The tenseness of the situation was increased by the fact that Soo Lin was fidgeting and faltering, as if there was something she wanted to say but couldn't. Sherlock unconsciously mimicked these movements, so scared he was of not receiving the information he needed that he'd resorted to postural echo to improve the impression he was making on her. He'd relapsed, his usually steel-like restraint malleable in the hands of a superior mystery. He couldn't help himself.<p>

"My questions will have to wait . . ." She acknowledged swiftly, waving them away. "The signs you saw at the library, and at the bank – they were put there as a warning-"  
>"I've gotten that far – but who by?" Sherlock cut her spiel short.<br>"They're called The Black Lotus. They're a Chinese tong . . . I used to be a member – _don't_ judge me for the mistakes I made. As you say, I am trying to atone . . . I was sixteen, living on the streets, with no way of surviving. But I had this _thing _I could do, obviously – when they found me, I was starving, and they gave me a food, shelter, _money_. By eighteen, I was smuggling hundreds of pounds worth of drugs across the border from China into Hong Kong – but I escaped that life," She pointed out rapidly, wanting to curtail her explanation until it was as short as possible.  
>"I escaped to here, where I've lived for five years without word from them . . . I knew they'd be back. Maybe not for me, but they'd be back. So when I found out about the circumstances of Van Coon's murder, I knew straight away what it meant. The symbols - the <em>numbers<em>, are a reference to a book. The London A-Z. I knew what had happened. How they'd all backed out. The warnings,"  
>"Backed out of <em>what<em>?" Sherlock tried to restrain his impatience, but a creeping sensation crawling all over his skin left him feeling cold and agitated. He needed his answers like he needed _air_.

Soo Lin looked down at her teapots, and shook her head.

"Recruitment. They came to London to recruit certain people. Van Coon: a man they knew was in exactly the right position to obtain information on these people, and help them persuade to join them. Lukis, a man who had an extraordinary ability – something to do with locations. With their help, they've begged and persuaded people like me to join their cause. They've even abducted people – taken them against their will, holding them. Doing horrible things . . . I couldn't stand by and watch them destroy even more peoples' lives, even though they were still looking for me. So, I decided to help the police. That's when you turned up.  
>"I knew you'd notice the subtle tips. I didn't know you'd find me . . . But after the first few tips, <em>they<em> grew suspicious, too. They used Lukis to find me – I _knew_ it was only a matter of time. So I packed, and left. I've been hiding here ever since. It's all I could do to keep myself alive. I never . . . I never thought you'd have the brains to find me here. I suppose I underestimated you, Mr. Holmes," She acknowledged, bowing her head. He gave a small smile, deciding that non-disclosure of his ability would probably be wise.

"That's quite alright. I couldn't have gotten this far without your help. Truly, I admire your bravery . . . There is one small matter, however," He asked, a frown gracing his face, as he tiled his face towards the teapots, not wishing to look her in the eyes. "Why were they killed?"

Soo Lin looked confused for a moment, as if she thought he already knew. She shook it off, and once more displayed her folded photograph on the nearby illuminated table. The symbols still had very little meaning to Sherlock without a copy of the London A-Z o hand, and a fully comprehensive knowledge of Hang Zhou numerals."

As I gathered, from the messages . . . They failed to comply, at long last. They went along with all sorts but . . . They couldn't take _him_. Van Coon because he didn't want to risk the police finding out about his involvement – selfish, vile man," She spat, and Sherlock nodded once in quick agreement. "Lukis . . . I believe he grew a conscience, in his final days. He wouldn't get someone who had been through so much involved. They both refused to recruit, and so they were killed for their non-compliance . . . The Black Lotus is truly the most brutal of tongs. They aim to be the most dangerous after this recruitment drive, too,"

Sherlock licked his lips, and suddenly sought eye contact with the invisible woman, as he asked:  
>"Who wouldn't they recruit?"<p>

He feared he already knew the answer, as the freezing dread shot up through him like liquid up a capillary tube.

Soo Lin blinked, frowning slightly.  
>"The messages I just mentioned: there was one by the railway tracks, near to the information drop-off point,"<br>"The Lucky Cat Emporium?"  
>She nodded, pointing at specific points on the crumpled paper from where she had set it down on the table: there were several symbols, reminiscent of the murder scene, and she indicated each in turn on.<br>"It says, '9 mil . . . For deadman . . . Tramway . . . And then, it says tomorrow's date – then 'midnight'. You haven't long. But, see: that's who they refused to recruit. _Deadman_,"

Sherlock mouthed the word: it felt alien in his mouth, as his tongue curled into consonants and vowels, his mind in a temporary lull: the calm before the storm.

_Deadman_.

. . . _John_. Of _course_ it had to be John. Who else? Who else was a man, technically dead, many times over? Who else was a perfect candidate for a gang member, than an immortal ex-soldier doctor?  
>Who else would be the least likely person to accept the offer when given it?<p>

"Oh God . . ." Sherlock murmured, whipping around, facing the door and striding towards it.  
>"What?" Soo Lin asked, the adrenaline she'd experienced at being found returning once more after the temporary drop-off. She skipped up behind him. <em>Walks like a dancer, too<em>. _The perfect disguise_.  
>"John – Doctor Watson. Where's he got to? I need to tell him-"<br>"You brought him _here_?" Soo Lin hissed, anger and sudden fright evident in her voice.  
>"Yes, he was just with me-"<p>

Her next words came as he turned around and saw her face blanch, balking at his words. Her next utterance sounded out across the already-dark room, a hoarse whisper coinciding perfectly with the light in the room switching off seemingly on its own:  
>"Then you have been followed . . . <em>He's<em> here-"  
>"Who? – I've met him before – the shadows-" Sherlock shuddered at the memory, but persisted with typical urgency: "Who is he?"<br>"My brother . . . Their puppet, their assassin – '_The Shadow_' . . . You may have condemned me by coming here tonight, Mr. Holmes . . ."

* * *

><p>Standing on a great marble plateau in the centre of the museum, John huffed in exasperation. He can't have gotten <em>that<em> far!

He would have thought pointedly at Sherlock, but they'd agreed on _radio silence_. Sherlock would probably override this with ease if he needed to, but John couldn't. It was Sherlock's power, after all: Sherlock was the one in control, and John just sort of _thought back_ at him. He'd just have to wait until the sleuth could be bothered to talk to him again.

There was a bench nearby, for tourists with museum-worn feet to rest on while they consulted their guide books. John conceded with a weary expression that he would have liked a guide book to show him around the labyrinthine museum right now. He wondered if there were any map dispensers nearby . . . No, he couldn't be bothered to check. After all, Sherlock would need to come back this way when he needed to leave.

What was all _that_ about, though? 'Keep guard' or something? He'd run off, that's what it was about. It was almost as if he didn't _trust_ him. He'd _die_ for him! He'd said as much earlier. Granted, it wouldn't stick, but it would still _hurt_. And, with every death, no sleep; no dreams came when he circled the vast drain of nothingness that was death.

There was nothing. Almost as painful as death itself was the familiar realisation that there was nothing. Those who died the conventional way, with a lack of awareness that they would reawaken back into the mortal world, could sift through the hinterland of nothingness in a state of blissful ignorance and unawareness. It was only he, as he couldn't go the full journey, who had to remain there until his physical self was ready to contain him again; only he who stood and observed the vast wastelands of oblivion, and thought:

_. . . Is this it?_

Truth be told, he didn't want to live forever because he hated being confronted with this awful knowledge: he wanted to, like them, move through the wasteland and not take it in just once; be happily resigned to an eternity of peaceful sleep. Maybe if he did die for good one day, he would fail to even notice that he was moving through the nothingness, so content he would be to be finally gone for good.

_Goodbye, Harry Watson. _

_Goodbye, Mrs. Hudson. _

_Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes._

. . . _Then again_, his body did tend to release high amounts of hallucinogenic chemicals at the point of death: this was an evolved addition to his power that he sometimes understood was meant to make the pain of death more bearable. So he was probably just imagining things such as the 'wasteland'. He scarcely remembered anything when he woke up, but still, he remembered the grey vista of bleakness . . .

. . . Which wasn't unlike this museum, in the midnight hour. He shuddered: how would he know if he'd already died? –_ Stupid thought. Pull yourself together_.

There was the green light of a fire escape in the distance, though, so this couldn't be his brain's conjured hinterland. Not with a colour as vibrant as that.  
>It flickered off.<p>

Then, as if the hallucinogenic chemicals at the point of death had been triggered prematurely, he watched as – where the light had just flickered off – seeping darkness literally travelled like the tide towards the bench he was sitting on.

The sea of shadows crawled along, hungry, corrupting: John had never seen evil at work like this since he had looked into the eyes of a shell-shocked late friend, as his insanity had taken over at last.

His fight-or-flight instinct kicking in noticeably even to him, he stood up, facing the onslaught of raging shadows that glided towards him with tense muscles and clenched fists. He took a wary step backwards, but as he tried to speed up in pace, a strange inertia take a vicious hold of every muscle, every tissue, every bone, every _cell _in his body.

There was nothing he could do.  
>His feet weren't touching the ground anymore.<br>He kicked his legs, struggling against the black fog that surrounded him like oil-burnt smoke. The shadow had more substance that he did; enough to overpower him, to take his smooth muscle and make it constrict, his airway closing in a matter-of-fact way, as if this was how it always behaved.

He struggled, though he couldn't feel a body to strike out against. Neither could he see one, with his eyes rolling infuriatingly back into his head. The shadow seemed to disapprove: he was overcome by sickening lethargy, an indolence that prevented him from straining against his attacker's constricting blows.

_The shadows . . . Sherlock warned me . . . This – this will take . . . A while . . ._

It was true. Suffocation wasn't pleasant; among the ranks, the _alumni_ of deaths he'd collected so far, he'd found that it was extremely nasty, and took much longer than the assassin presumed at first. It was often he'd hear the stranger crying with sheer fatigue, harrowed and tired by the effort taken to perform the murder, as well as by the act itself.

. . . This, though, wasn't traditional suffocation. It took mere seconds for him to drop to the floor; the air sucked from his lungs is if there was some sort of vacuum involved; black spots appearing in his vision.

It felt so different to any other death he'd ever had, in that he'd always been much more resigned to them, with the knowledge he could bounce back . . . He felt so such reassurance here. He suspected that this was his body telling him he'd be trapped in the hinterland for much longer than usual, and his watering eyes seemed to agree with and lament this in equal measure.

His eyes moved, shaking off their torpor to stare at his hand, which was visible due to his head sprawling to one side. It was his left, and he traced the outline of the near-perfect skin of his index finger, barely a day or so old.

John Watson died with his eyes open. He would see the wasteland at least one more time.  
>The shadows lingered, as if wanting to make sure every last residual trace of life was long gone like a candle blown out, and the smoke blown out of the window and lost in the atmosphere.<p>

. . . "John . . . ?"

One minute later, Sherlock Holmes skidded around the corner, running towards where his friend lay, cooling; the pallor of death was visible, scrawled upon his face, even at some distance. Though he hadn't seen the doctor's final breath, he could have imagined it: the facial expression, the regret, the stoical brace set to try and contain his agony . . . He could have killed never to see it again.

He knew exactly who the murder was. He would have known even if he hadn't seen the shadow surrounding his flatmate, like the stain of darkness on a sundial, moving with passing hours. It may as well have been counting the hours on that sundial until its untimely death: the fury in the psychic's eyes swore vengeance, as he disregarded the fact that John would come back eventually:

_A slight on John meant war. _

Soo Lin crept up behind him, and stood proud, surveying the scene.

"Brother," She called lightly, pacing in her ballerina gait towards the dastardly scene of the murder. Like a ballerina, strong, supple, and prepared to feel pain for her art; for her cause. Sherlock followed her, but she halted him, turning quickly to face him around.

"Take your friend . . . Take him, before my brother does. He'll find you eventually, and you have to be ready. He won't stop. You saw – he scaled buildings, poured through windows . . . He's killed hundreds as their puppet. I – can buy you time, at least. Their main priority is the traitor – _me_,"  
>"I don't think-"<br>"Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes. Take your friend and go,"

Sherlock stood for a moment in dumbstruck inaction, but as she ran towards the shadow, he watched it become a man: the black silhouette of a man, short like she was but equally as strong. She ran down a corridor to one side where he couldn't see her, and watched as her brother followed her, his hands still made of smoky black shadow that trailed behind him as he ran after her desperately.

He didn't have to be the master of deduction, nor did he have to be psychic, to know what would happen next.

He ran to John's side, before stopping in a moment of queer embarrassment and indecision.

_Fireman's lift . . .? _

He knew it may be a few minutes – maybe more due to the supernatural nature of the death – before John returned to the land of the living. He had to leave now, though, or else Soo Lin's courageous self-sacrifice would be for nothing, and the Shadow would be back, to claim John for the gang.

So, to the fire escape exit, with the immortal soldier slung over his shoulder. He was short, and so weight was saved on legs, but he was also muscle-bound. This made him significantly heavier than Sherlock had predicted – it was true that Sherlock had no real idea of how much muscle mass John had, having never seen him without clothes on, but his weigh indicated that it was _a lot_. Not atypical in military-types.

He carried his friend down the fire escape and sat a while at the bottom against a wall, gaining his breath back. He propped John up next to himself, and looked at his face: it appeared sickly, his eyes wide, foggy and perpetually shocked, as his head sagged to the side with his lack of muscle-tone. Sherlock grimaced, as he observed the blue touches around his nose and lips: cyanosis, from inadequate tissue perfusion. A horrible way to die; no dignity in it.

He couldn't stay here, though. He had to run away, before the Shadow reached them once more. He'd be sure to try and claim John again, if he caught them. He hated to think what would happen to himself: whether they didn't know about his power, and would kill him for being involved and knowing too much; whether they knew about it, and could force him into working for them . . .

No. There was no _way_ he'd let that happen. He was the world's only consulting detective – psychic, too. There was no way they could make him do _anything_. No one could.

As Soo Lin had said, they just had to be ready next time. Next time, he could stop the entire gang, _for good_.  
>He had motive: any detective did, let alone one staring into the eyes of their (temporarily) dead best friend . . . All he needed now was opportunity. . . . <em>And<em> _a bloody cab._

_Now_, he thought to himself: _how do I convince a cab driver to take us home . . .?_

* * *

><p>Shuddering, tentative breath returned once more to John's limp frame; he regained muscle tone suddenly, but not with a start. It was just that, he was dead – and then he just wasn't.<br>No big deal. No light display, no fanfare . . . No surprises. Just warmth, his hand balling up and clutching cloth as if he were grasping onto life once more.

He breathed with suspicion, as if every breath he took would be painful, like before. Of course, no such pain came. The warm blackness his veiled lids provided him with was comforting: at least black had substance; at least it wasn't a grey, bland, indifferent wasteland . . . At least he was alive.

There was a tinny, quiet mumbling in the background. After several attempts at matching the sound, he realised gradually that it was a radio, though he couldn't interpret the words being said, as if they were in a foreign language, or subaqueous. Frowning, he fidgeted, and found himself leaning rather comfortably on something, _someone_ warm.

There was a hand in his hair: it was hesitant, as if unsure what to do – someone who had never been with him before when he'd died, and so didn't know how to act. _Well, then. That was everyone. _

_Every time I die, I die alone.  
>Everyone dies alone in the end. <em>

He murmured something he couldn't quite remember, such was the lethargy and fatigue that totally enveloped him. The hand, warily, began to stroke his hair; it patted awkwardly, before finding a stroking-pattern that was less out of its depth.  
>"Shh – you're a bit out of it," A deep voice from above told him, as if it were an instruction. He heard the same voice seconds later, but not out loud.<p>

The way you died – he destroyed every cell, diffusing, becoming intangible-

Sorry. Big words . . . Basically, you're bound to feel tired. It was a regeneration of every cell, not just the damaged area. He did it on purpose. But, you're tired. Go back to sleep.  
>But – How – cab?<br>Never mind. She's a very kind woman. Very understanding.

John shifted his gaze to the front seat, registering a flat cap, a gilet and . . . A ponytail of long, blonde hair? . . . She's have to be very bloody understanding, he thought, to let a man and a corpse get a ride home.

Did he imagine it, though? The hand in his hair, stroking; calming whispers of reassurance from usually so rigid and guarded lips? . . . Was he dreaming already?

He was asleep. Not dead, but not dreaming.

For once, just blankly asleep.


	8. Dust

Racked with the sensation that his body tissues were seemingly necrotic, John's eyes crawled open. Little by little, they acknowledged his wakefulness, and meaningful thought rather than wandering notions took its place at the forefront of his bleary mind.

_Ow_.

His stiff neck allowed him to twist his head, and look about: that was _not _his bedroom ceiling. That was the _living room_ ceiling. He remembered what happened last night . . . Dying. He definitely remembered dying, and then waking up in a cab, with a reassuring hand brushing his hair reluctantly.

_Oh, Sherlock. _

"Sherlock?" He called hesitantly, estimating that his flatmate – never having seen him die before – would be hanging around like a bad smell. At the same time as wanting to reassure him, he had woken up in a lot of pain from his leg and shoulder, and wasn't feeling one hundred percent. Comforting the _big child_ he lived with would have to wait.

"Good morning," Boomed a voice from above. Despite his pain, John jerked his head round and saw that Sherlock had leapt up from his position perched on the sofa's arm. He was now pretending to be very interested in a magazine. John hadn't the heart to tell him that television guide was two months out of date, thus rendering his interest in it obviously ersatz.

He'd been very close, by the volume of his voice – or that could just be John's sensitive ears . . . Watching him, probably. Probably observing him as an experiment, actually. Daft sod.

"How did I get – um, how did we get home?"  
>"I put you there," Sherlock answered the first question on his mind. "Mrs. Hudson provided the blankets. As for how we got home, we used the usual method of transportation . . . Do you not remember?" He added hesitantly, raising his head and looking unsure, with a furrow of his eyebrows. He looked down at John, who propped himself up on one elbow, looking in interest at the blankets that adorned him.<p>

It was all too obvious now it had been pointed out: they smelt of perfume, and Earl Grey – which they _didn't _drink, because John found it too perfumed, and because Sherlock preferred coffee – and biscuits: all the smells that confronted you when you entered Mrs. Hudson's homely, warm flat. Of _course_ she'd been more than happy to lend Sherlock some blankets, on account of his flatmate's . . . His flatmate's . . . ?

". . . What on earth did you say to get us a cab? – How did you explain it to _Mrs._ _Hudson_?" He asked. Sherlock didn't reply.

Why do I get the feeling this is going to end in a humiliating fabricated story?  
>'Humiliating' is . . . subjective.<br>I'll take that as confirmation, then.

"What did you say?" Asked John quietly, narrowing his eyes and swinging his legs around so his feet touched the floor, though he winced and grunted at the movement of his death-worn limbs.

Sherlock sighed. He wasn't going to get out of this scot-free.

"To Mrs. Hudson . . . I said you'd had one too many. She didn't see me carry you upstairs – it was a believable lie, at least,"  
>"Oh, <em>great<em>. Thanks a bunch!" John replied sarcastically, not raising his voice or sounding too angry.  
>"Well, what else was I supposed to say!" Hissed Sherlock, throwing his arms out in protest and explanation, as if begging the question, <em>Well? What would <em>you_ have said?_

"All right, all right," John acknowledged through gritted teeth, though he knew Mrs. Hudson would probably be up in a few minutes with a Beroca and a perpetually-concerned expression.  
>"And?"<br>"To the cab driver . . ." Sherlock paused, smirking though it was inappropriate to do so. He couldn't help himself; he'd never been able to resist a little mischief. "I found a woman with sympathetic tendencies, so I knew it would work, and that I wouldn't go to all the trouble of lying for nothing," John nodded warily, in understanding. "Then I said something along the lines of – 'My partner's had his drink spiked' . . ."

John buried his face in his hands, shaking his head in embarrassment.

"_Shh - you're a bit out of it_," . . . The stroking, the reassurance . . . !

"Jesus, Sherlock," He muttered, reluctantly coming to terms with the cause of Sherlock's seemingly-affectionate behaviour. His voice was gravelly and his throat temporarily sore: he couldn't be bothered to shout, for now. Perhaps later.

"Yet again, I'd have liked to see you do better! As it was, you were a little too occupied being _dead_ to care at that moment!"  
>"Keep your bloody voice down! I'm pretty sure Mrs. Hudson already knows <em>something's <em>going on, just between us, but being discrete couldn't do any harm," John reminded Sherlock.

They sat in silence for a moment. Sherlock turned to the window, and then paced for a while, his head flicking up to the pictures on the wall every so often, muttering to himself.

John giggled. Sherlock's hawk-eyes flicked icily to him, narrowing in suspicion.

"What?" He spat. He still thought they were having an argument.  
>"Oh, nothing, <em>nothing<em>," John smiled, looking out of the window. "Just . . . Crazy night, eh?"

Slowly, Sherlock's face became neutral, and eventually, inch by inch, a small smile spread across his face. Not the fish-hook almost-sarcastic one John had seen previously; more of a friendly thing – a much rarer beast. They shared a smile for a moment.

"Indeed," He agreed quietly. "The cab driver would vouch for that, at least,"

Hurrying to the counter, John afforded the room with a cursory glance, and winced: the waiting room was fit to burst with patients who obviously didn't realise that there was no cure for the common cold yet.

"I'm so sorry! I was a bit – _under the weather_ this morning. Must have overslept!" He made his various excuses, but they only served to snowball into a bit ball of incompetence-highlighting waffle. The stern receptionist took a look at him from over the brim of her glasses, and let out a colossal sigh.

"Well, there's a lot going around at the moment," She acknowledged begrudgingly, and tore her gaze from him to record that he'd arrived on the surgery's computer system. John sighed in relief: all he had to do now was deal with a hundred or so patients before he could go home, and –

"Hello, Stranger!"  
>"Sarah!" John shuffled over to where his colleague had emerged from her room, ready for her next patient. The people in the waiting room, already annoyed, rolled their eyes almost in unison. He didn't need Sherlock's power to be able to determine what they were thinking: <em>shouldn't they be working? I've got places to be! <em>

Oh, _shoot_. He'd completely forgotten about his date with her, what with all the chasing shadows in darkened museums he'd been partaking in of late.

"Listen, I'm so sorry I'm late–" He began.  
>"We are a bit backed up," Sarah replied neutrally, her eyes flicking towards the receptionist, who with her gaze was trying to burn holes in the back of John's head. John, fully aware of this, was unperturbed. <em>Let her try<em>.

"I'm really sorry. My flatmate's a bit of a pain in the arse when it comes to late nights – I slept over the alarm,"

Sarah looked visibly put out, and John furrowed his brow, trying to search for the answer. Perhaps social ineptitude was contagious.

"Oh, she keeps you up then, your – flatmate?" She asked, with an obviously-fake but graciously polite smile. He was confused when he detected a note of double-entendre in her voice.  
>Suddenly John understood, and spluttered, not able to get his words out quick enough:<br>"No, no! No, Sherlock's not – _he_ does have a bad habit of playing the violin at all hours, yes," He explained. They both knew full well the latent conversation they were having on top of the outwardly-visible one about oversleeping.

Sarah, obviously having had her faith in John's _availability_ restored slightly, perked up:  
>"You haven't forgotten about tonight, have you . . . ?" She asked warily, but still with a broad smile.<br>"No, no – I thought, um-"

_Argh_. He knew it sounded lame, but he was going to have to admit he'd come up with nothing more exciting to do than go to _the cinema_. Sarah was beautiful, and on the way home from work yesterday she'd proved she intelligent and funny, too. To have to admit to something so mundane would be _embarrassing_ – Then, a conversation, lasting a split second, inaudible to all but John and his nosy flatmate:

Chinese circus. Venue near Baker Street. Cheap, correct duration. One night only. 8:30pm.  
>Uh – privacy! You nosy bugger!<br>Sounds better than 'the cinema'. Received flyer this morning in post. I've booked you tickets.  
>Um . . . Thanks. Yeah, actually – thanks!<br>Well, go on, then.

"Actually, I've got us tickets for this thing . . ."

Cold bit at his gaunt cheeks, nibbling at the taut edges of his facial structure. It was nothing compared to the icy breeze on his face, but even that failed to perturb him. Lost in thought as he was, he was oblivious to everything in the world outside his mind's ethereal conjecture – everything but a couple he'd followed to a darkened street. It began to drizzle ever so slightly, and he could hear their typically wry comments about how awful the British weather was as it began to pick up, slowly but surely.

He kept in step with them, waiting for them to enter the warmth of a theatre doorway twenty or so metres away; he'd long since determined that this would be the proper distance at which to follow them from until the moment he would chose to reveal himself properly. If he was discovered, he'd only be sent home: a command he couldn't obey – not tonight. Best to keep a distance, while being able to observe his friend.

He was in more trouble than he would ever know.

John was the bait tonight. John was the temptation; the predator's gold. If the circus troupe was truly run by The Black Lotus – which it _was_, he'd surmised – then _surely_ they wouldn't be able to resist trying to catch him?

Only Sherlock would be ready . . . Oh, he'd be ready all right. He had a favour to repay to this Shadow character. Hell hath no fury like a Holmes' scorn.

"-No, we only have two reserved, I think –?"

_Oh dear_. John would sadly misinterpret this as an attempt at sabotage. This, coupled with last night's proclamation to their cab driver that he was _his partner_, would quite obviously lead the former army doctor to some erroneous conclusions. Well, so long as the case was on track, it hardly mattered.

He smoothly made his entrance, gliding into the conversation.

"The third is for me," He interrupted with a broad, squinting-eyed smile. Sarah's expression grew confused, flicking from her date's eyes to a full-body examination of the consulting detective. Sherlock had already performed his preliminary assessment of Sarah, from the bottom of the stairs on the way to the box office.

Smart woman, IQ probably around the 110s at most. She had high hopes for this date, though she didn't usually make a habit of dating co-workers. It must be a locum thing: he'd easily be gone in a few months, at most. Just enough time to move in there, and make an assessment of John's worth as a life-partner, or whatever people were referring to each other as these days.

Triumphantly, he registered that those facts had been ascertained by his observational deductive abilities alone – though he wasn't above reading her mind, as she didn't come under the bracket of _friend_ yet. John would thank him later; _perhaps_ on the day he realised he'd been caring for him by making sure his life partner wouldn't murder him in days to come.

Perhaps.

"Sherlock Holmes," He introduced himself, holding out a gloved left hand and stowing the other behind his back; intensifying his powerful stare, thinly veiled by his obviously-forced smile. Sarah didn't seem intimidated, so John took a sigh of relief before shooting a death-glare at his flatmate.

"Well, um," Sarah began, unsure of what to say, but was relieved of the burden of saying anything for now as they passed through the ticket collector, and to the bottom of a lengthy staircase.

She was beginning to understand what John had said about his flatmate's unsociable tendencies. She didn't blame John: he seemed just as surprised as she did that the man had turned up. "I've just got to go to the ladies – see you in five?" She agreed with John, her eyes wavering on Sherlock for a second, but he had long since begun to stare bolt-upright, into the dark rafters above them. The staircase to the main hall went up much further than the general populace might assume at first glance. This was quite an old, tall building. _Something_ was up there.

"Yeah! Yeah, see in you in five," John smiled warmly at his date, ignoring his flatmate as he floundered over his words slightly, and watched her as she walked up the stairs and round the corner toward the ladies bathroom.

Slowly, he turned to Sherlock with a coldly-corrosive expression of anger. It lasted only a second, before he set off at a near-run up the stairs towards the main hall, where the performance would take place. Sherlock easily caught up with him, only vaguely aware that something was wrong. _He probably just thinks I wanted to see how fast I could get up the staircase_, John thought to himself with bitter sarcasm.

John, really. I'm not _that_ oblivious. I'd never get along in this job if I couldn't see the blindingly obvious -  
>Why, then? Why couldn't you see I wanted to be alone with Sarah tonight?<br>It was of the utmost importance that you come here tonight, John. By now, you'll know that you are embroiled in this case irrevocably. More so that I, even. They want to recruit _you_, John, not me. And I believe they're running this circus.

"What the f- . . . ?" John's voice faded away as he whisked around on the stairs to face his colleague, trying to spot a hint of humour or jest in his silver eyes. There was none he could recognise: this wasn't a joke, he noted, and realised he'd slipped accidentally into real speech rather than thought, but didn't care much: "_This_ circus? That we're about to see?" He asked incredulously.  
>"That you're about to see, yes," Sherlock confirmed, with a weary roll of his eyes, "I'll be exploring upstairs,"<br>"Wait – so, you, you . . . _Lure_ me here, into the hands of a dangerous gang of criminals, _Sarah in tow-_"  
>"It's <em>you<em> they want, not her," Sherlock reminded him with a _don't-be-such-an-idiot_ tone that grated stupendously on John's mind.  
>"Ever heard of such a thing as <em>collateral damage<em>?" John spat loudly. Two passing circus-goers looked bewildered by the argument, and he smiled apologetically at them as they went past.

He sighed; his whole life seemed like one infinite sigh, such did the action sum up his entire existence – well, his entire_ relationship_ _with Sherlock_, which was about equivalent to his life right now, for how much the man seemed to dictate his actions. Sometimes, he wasn't sure Sherlock was telling the truth about not being in possession of the mind-control power.

. . . I brought your gun.

John didn't think anything coherent and fully formed enough to be part of their telepathic conversation, as Sherlock slipped the weapon out of his coat and unassumingly handed it to John, who took it without protest in an unspoken, _not-consciously-thought_ contract of understanding.

The less of a big deal they made, the less people would notice. Besides: Sherlock knew no one was coming; knew no one was watching, after checking psychically for a full minute. John tucked the old army gun into the back of his waistband, covering it with his red shirt and battered black jacket just in time before a party of what were obviously art students rounded the corner.

Just, in case anything goes wrong – _which it won't_. They probably won't strike in front of all these people, but if they do, there're so many witnesses that your actions will be totally justified.  
>. . . And you'll be, what – exploring? What does that entail, precisely?<br>Just having a look upstairs. I have a few theories about the gang's base of operations – I think this might be one of them, but why chose somewhere so public? Moreover, why have _two_ headquarters? The message Soo Lin gave me said _tramway_. This certainly isn't it, so why have another base here? _Is_ this even a base?  
>. . . Do you actually want an answer, or are you just thinking out loud to me again?<br>You never usually complain.

"Well I'm never usually trying to _get off with Sarah_ – oh, hey!" He finished brightly, as his date appeared behind him. She looked a little awkward, but laughed genuinely at him.  
>"Great. I've made a bit of an idiot of myself now, haven't I?" He rubbed his face with his hand. She pursed her lips and nodded.<br>"Come on, let's go before you say something even more stupid . . . Will you be joining us?" She asked politely, indicating the door to the main hall, which was thronging with latecomers right about now.

With a pointed single shake of his head, Sherlock darted upstairs, leaving Sarah bemused and John blithely shaking his head.  
>"Don't worry about him. He's a bit of a <em>one<em>. Sorry about him turning up, he's . . . A bit different, shall we say?"  
>"Is that a euphemism?" She shot back, raising an eyebrow.<br>John laughed, but didn't answer. They strode into the hall, with the lights dimming and a consulting detective rooting about undetected several floors above them.

Gingerly treading each step, Sherlock took out his trusty old torch, endowed with fresh long-life batteries. There were no lights on up here; no one was supposed to be here, and undoubtedly, turning on the lights would draw attention to his ascent. He listened, as the sound of the show beginning rang out below: the rhythmic beat of a small drum, and almost stereotypically Chinese music sounded out.

Sherlock sniffed the air. There was an overriding smell of plastic and rubber: the telltale scent of low-budget linoleum flooring, courtesy of the council. And yet, it was owned by a private company, according to his extensive yet near-fruitless research into the place. He couldn't find who, but he had a record of _someone_ buying the place.

There hadn't been much on at this theatre of late. Not since it was bought, actually. He filed this fact away in his hard drive as 'for later', along with the dying words of the cabbie and a reminder to look up exactly what the parameters of '_get off with_' entailed, in relation to coitus.

His breath was close, but he detected not a thought for several floors: truly, everyone was downstairs. But . . . He could hear whispers. A chill shot down his spine, quick and brutal as electrocution. He suppressed a shudder, and continued to ascend the stairwell. The stairs wound round: five steps this way, turn, five steps that way, turn . . . It was hypnotic, as every level looked the same. The voice drew nearer.

_How could someone be up here, speaking, without thinking_? This didn't make sense. Nor did the dust on the floor, only broken by the occasional neat set of footprints: all one way . . . Someone had been through here. By the size of his feet, he'd say the man – for it was most certainly a man, from his gait – was tall, but the length of his stride indicated otherwise. He was looking for someone short, with large feet. He _must_ still be up here, if there were no footsteps on the ground.

_Unless_ . . . He dropped to the ground, putting his torch in his mouth, and closely examined the footprints – no, no – they had only been trodden once. He brushed a gloved hand across the footprint: the pattern in the dust was typical of a once-trodden footprint; undisturbed by someone trying to hide their new footsteps back by treading in their old ones.

A figure, a ghost, a _man_, shrouded in black.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. _We meet again_.

. . . But it was only a memory. He stood up, and took his torch in his hand, as he continued up the final flight of stairs. As always, he kept close to the walls, and his wide eyes barely blinked lest they miss some vital information that could lead to the doom of his enemies – or himself.

He continued his search, and could vaguely make out the whispers now: he listened hard with his telepathy, as well as with his ears, as it grew pathetically loud. In addition to the hard patter of rain against glass somewhere, the weeping – no, the _prayer_. Someone praying. Why – _how_ could that be? He was missing something.

He reached a door at the top of the stairs, its jaded, once-friendly plastic handle shining back at him. He turned his torch away, and pressed an ear to the door – the sound of the rain changed in dynamic, as one of his ears began to hear it through the door, but the whispering remained the same. _Ah_ – this meant that the prayer wasn't out loud. It was thoughts, but there was no one here . . . It wasn't memories, his volatile psychometric ability informed him coldly.

Through the crack between the floor and the bottom of the door . . . A glowing light. But not the type produced by a light in the room being left on. It was ghostly, and blue.  
>Trying not to breathe at all, Sherlock opened the door abruptly: it creaked painfully loudly, as he stumbled in, and closed it behind himself. He turned around.<p>

Phosphorescent light emanated from the centre of the room, shimmering, welcoming him: the praying emanating front it left him under no illusion as to what the great circular, swirling, luminous blue light was. His lips parted, and he smiled in surprised delight, breathing in deeply through his nose as the thrill of the chase hit him like a double-decker bus, just like it always did.

No steps coming back the other way; no one in the room; but thoughts of prayer detectable.

_A portal_. They'd left through the portal; the thoughts of prayer were seeping through. _Elegant_ . . .

When faced with a portal, what could Sherlock Holmes do but walk forward, reach out with his hand, and just –

–smell of sewage was ghastly and immediately-apparent, as he fought to swiftly stifle his torchlight. It wouldn't do to draw attention to himself, now, would it?

He looked around, and in the light the portal afforded him, observed a large, circular, dark and damp tunnel. He witnessed a line of portals – three, in addition to his own – adjacent to the one he'd just emerged from. In front of him, two rows consisting of about eight shipping storage containers each.

The Shadow had come through the portal, but there was no sign of him now, nor of any other enemies close enough to see. He felt a creeping fear that never usually inhabited his stony consciousness: _you won't be able to see him in the dark if he's in shadow form. You won't be able to hear his thoughts if he's in shadow form. He could attack any minute. _

These would-be paralysing realisations served only to annoy him. There wasn't much he could do about it now, was there? He'd just have to risk it.

And still, the prayers! He reached out, and touched the storage container in front of him, stroking the rough metal and narrowing his eyes. _What are they hiding in here_?

It was confirmed: the theatre was run by The Black Lotus, and no mistake. _This_ was the tramway. The theatre had merely been a stop-gap; a front, for their real operations. They could jump between the theatre and this tramway (_god-knows-where_ this place even was), probably in a matter of seconds – though he wasn't sure how long the trip in the portal had set him back. There could have been a time delay, for all he knew. He'd never come across the ability to conjure portals before. Regular teleportation, yes – but not prolonged, multiple rifts in space-time maintained for longer than a fraction of a second.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: Sherlock's silver eyes saw beauty in the best-laid, slick plans of criminal organisations trying to foil him, as well as a truly and perfectly well-utilised power. He saw both as he looked back over his shoulder and at the gleaming portal. _Beautiful_.

But the whispers grew more urgent: the Lord's Prayer, his mind supplied from somewhere, and his lip curled upwards in a sneer. Suddenly, he realised his ability had been screaming at him deafeningly: he'd been too distracted to even care.

Someone's in the container, Sherlock. They're praying for their life.

Suddenly frenzied, his movements were swift and efficient, as he took out his lock-pick. The bulky yet slightly incompetent padlock they'd use to chain the container shut was a _little_ disappointing. He'd hoped for better from his rivals. The lock popped easily under his expert attention.

He pushed the door shut, and took out his torch once more, aiming the beam only into the large box.

"Took your time," Noted a lightly mocking male voice.  
>"You're welcome," Sherlock replied sarcastically, looking down at the man. He recognised him as . . . <em>Well<em>, a woman. They both kept their voices very low, so as to avoid detection from the inevitable guards Sherlock had detected a way away.

"Why didn't Mycroft contact me?"  
>"He did. Check your phone," Replied Anthea, as he termed her, though a preliminary scan of her mind on their first meeting had revealed her true name to him. She sighed dismissively, before moving swiftly to business:<br>"Excuse me while I change sex. I'm given to believe that for some reason it's not entirely polite to do so, but you have to understand, it'd be murder to be a woman in _that_ environment," She indicated the dark, rotten, stinking metal box they stood in. She transformed seamlessly to a form he recognised more, though it was unnecessary; she brushed her dark brown hair from her pale face and grey eyes.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. She _never_ looked the same, and he never understood why she even bothered trying to be consistent. Her thought-pattern was familiar to him though, always.

"Why're _you _here then?" Asked Sherlock. "And why the prayer?"  
>"I'm sure you could have just read my mind about it," Pointed out Anthea. She took out a small mirror from <em>somewhere<em>, and tidied her hair until it was meticulous. Sherlock resisted the urge to growl in annoyance.  
>"Yes, well, I'm given to believe that for some reason it's <em>not entirely polite to do so<em>," He hissed, mimicking her earlier platitude.  
>"The prayer, if you read your texts, is a code, Mr. Holmes," She snapped shortly. "It was to alert you to the fact that it was <em>me<em>. I'm here because Mycroft has been keeping a keen eye on this gang for a while, and he suspected something was afoot. I got myself forcibly 'recruited', so I could report any information I heard about their operations back to him when my rescue was eventually affected. That way, even if they aren't caught, I shall have the key to terminating this _league_ . . . I've been here for two days," She glanced around at the container, grimacing at the bucket in the corner. "One does what one does for one's country,"

"Indeed," Sherlock replied, only half-listening, his eyes squinting with an effort to see the in the darkness. By now, they were both leaning over the threshold of the container, their heads looking for intruders. "I presume the others are in the other crates?"  
>"Naturally. Did you come armed?"<p>

Sherlock remained silent, as Anthea huffed at his incompetence.  
>"Bullets are hardly <em>useful<em> against the Shadow, are they?"  
>He heard her breath hitch. Though she was a hardened operative of MI6, the Shadow struck unbridled fear into her, just as he did John and Sherlock alike.<br>"I need you to release the others in here. The guards aren't far away, but they're making their rounds. I can distract them for long enough for you to free everyone, presuming you're half-decent with a lock pick," He told her, drawing up to his full height.

She raised an eyebrow at him. It was the only response he needed, concerning her skills of _practical application_.

"I would think it wise, Mr. Holmes, that,_ I _remain to distract the guards. After all, my training allows me to withstand any sort of torture possible, as well as providing me with the skills to get out of virtually _any_ situation in a matter of-"  
>"Yes, but you aren't telepathic, now, are you? – Get on with it. They're coming,"<br>Though protest was evident on her face, she held eye contact with him as she changed her clothes silently and swiftly to those of black, including a balaclava and gloves.  
>"Go," He told her – and that was as much luck as she was being wished by him on her mission.<p>

Sherlock Holmes watched her disappear in a matter of metres, and stepped out of the crate. He headed for the guards that were coming his way, turning his torch towards them and generally making as much commotion as possible.

"Good evening, gentlemen!" He called to them with a blithe wave and an unholy grin smeared across his face. He watched the two men turn to each other in total surprise, and took this half-second opportunity to read their minds.

_One: teleporter. Has chosen to appear at my right, and try and grab my arm in an attempt to break it.  
>Two: the creator of the various portals. No threat from powers during combat, but has chosen to try and shoot me in the knee. Must avoid<em>.

So when he felt the beginning of a sudden grasp on his arm, he flung the perpetrator in front of himself, and waited for him to cry out in agony as the bullet intended for his own knee hit the back of his calf, sticking in and snapping the bone. He screamed, and the other guard looked dumbfounded, as he holstered his gun: there was no way he was going to fire again while his colleague was being used as a human shield.

Approaching Sherlock as a sprint, he threw his fist out in front of him: Sherlock threw down the first man, and used the second's momentum against him, dodging the fist and kneeing him in the stomach so he bent at a ninety degree angle. He grabbed the man's gun from his holster, and pushed him to the ground, as the teleporter writhed in pain on the floor. The man was so stupid, he hadn't even had the forethought to teleport himself to a _hospital_.

Sherlock tutted, revelling in his victory for a second. Portals went out all around him, leaving his torch as the only point of light. He presumed it was because the portal-creator had lost concentration.

"The criminal underclasses," He shook his head, in mock contemplation, and drew the gun up to the head of the cowering portal-creator. "You just can't get the staff these days, can you?"

But the next thing he knew, his torch went black, too.

His vision was blackened in a second, but not because of the lack of light. He scraped at his throat, gloved fingers digging deep into the skin, as if irrationally trying to provide another airway, but _it was no _use, all he got were scratches and sores from the friction. His body grew drastically cold.

–_**Watson– If you can hear me, John Watson – tramway – darkness – breathe – Shadow – John –!**_

_A second_ – it had only taken a _second's_ lack of concentration, and he was on the floor, rasping for air, with blacker-than-darkness shrouding him, permeating his skin and his airway, and sending him careering into the inky dark void for the second time in as many days. . .

_A dark tunnel_, his mind reminded him unhelpfully: _the perfect hiding place, if you're a shadow. _


	9. Gifted

_**AN: Here you go, folks! The final chapter, excluding the epilogue. I promise a full resolution and tying-up-of-loose-ends in said epilogue, with a brief glimpse at the next story at the end. **_

_**URGENT: I need to know, for next chapter and the next one, how dark you would like the story to be, ideally. I'm prepared to make it quite dark, but if you'd perfer more jolly japes then by all mean, let it be known! Otherwise you might be dissapointed. **_

_**Thanks to Sophie who has been reviewing, as well! The other Silver!Verse story (the Torchwood/Silver!Verse crossover 'Suspending Disbelief') should have a new chapter in a bit. Bob's working on it, I think! **_

_**As always, a pleasure to write for you all. R&R! - B. **_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Watson– If you can hear me, Watson – <strong>_

Something wasn't quite right.

John cursed himself for his apparent inability to fully relax. He hadn't properly felt safe, or unwound, since Afghanistan. While he wouldn't have his life a bland series of banal and neutral events, just _one_ night where he didn't feel like someone might die _would _be beneficial; if not for his mental health, for his date's peace of mind.

Sarah eyed him with caution. He'd stopped with a forkful of pasta half way to his mouth, gaining her full attention. She looked wary, yes; but more than a little concerned, too.

". . . John?" She ventured.  
>"Sorry, I-" He began to make an excuse, but stopped himself, resuming eating his food as if nothing had happened. "Don't worry. I'm just a little tired still,"<p>

Sarah nodded, but wasn't entirely convinced. He'd been fine up until now – _better_, in fact. She'd had a good time, despite the fact they both thought the circus was a bit dodgy – _more like art than a circus_, as he'd put it. She'd laughed: in general, she thought he was funny, in a very British way – if that didn't sound too clichéd.

"Never mind. I've had some tough shifts lately; I'm not quite one hundred percent . . . Though, I imagine you've had tougher in your life," She added as an afterthought. John was glad of her awareness of his military past, but being reminded of it when he wasn't expecting it was a little rattling. He tried to hide this by smiling, though it was tight and forced at best.  
>"Well, yes," He agreed in a measured way. "Thank goodness it's over, though," He lied.<br>". . . What was it like?" She asked quietly, taking a sip of wine and a few seconds of weighted silence.

He stared at the small candle in the centre of the table, wondering how best to avoid giving a straight answer. In the end, he decided that the best way to do so was to answer her question with a question.  
>"The war, or coming home?" He sidestepped, giving himself more time to think of an answer.<br>She shrugged, putting her knife and fork together neatly.  
>"Both. Either. I don't have anyone in the armed forces in my family, so I can't even imagine . . ." She trailed off. ". . . I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry. Bit personal for a first date – maybe next time-"<br>John just smiled. Well, if she thought there would be a _next time_, he was going to have to give her _something_. More dates would mean more questions – he'd have to work on that later.

"It was . . . Amazing. Really – exhilarating. But not just that . . . I think for a while, I really liked it," _I still do_, he reminded himself. "Job satisfaction's a fine thing. But it had to end, of course. I was hoping it wouldn't end so _abruptly_, but that's life," He shrugged, his eyes glazing over slightly. She returned his smile, but it faded with her next question:  
>"What happened?" She asked, but blushed – not for the first time. He took her hand from across the table, reassuring her with human contact.<p>

It was funny: he was so used to reassuring his flatmate, pacifying his histrionic behaviour with _words_, but this . . . It was completely different. Just as special, but in a different way, he acknowledged as he felt her soft skin beneath his palm. He hoped he didn't have sweaty palms . . .

"Don't worry, it's fine to ask!" He told her. She stared at their hands, which held onto each other, and for a minute, John witnessed a battle going on all over her face. The side which won was the 'let's-throw-caution-to-the-wind' side, and she continued to hold his hand rather than withdraw.  
>"I was shot, unfortunately – in the left shoulder,"<br>"Blimey. Big scar?" She marvelled.  
>He paused, his mouth open to answer but without anything to say for a few seconds, and his eyes flicking all around the room.<br>". . . Not that big, no," He told her with a non-committal shrug.

She looked as if she was going to protest, as confusion at his words graced her eyes for a few seconds; it quickly disappeared: "But – oh, never mind,"

He laughed.  
>"I was very lucky," He assured her, and looked into her eyes as he referred to her: "I still am!"<br>He cursed himself for the cheesy line he'd just unleashed on his date.

–– _**tramway – darkness – breathe – Shadow – John –!**_

He stood up suddenly, pushing the table away from himself and looking around. A few eyes from neighbouring tables turned towards him, anticipating a couple's spat or some other such fight, with the sudden violent movement. He was sweating, and his head jerked all around, searching for the source of the voice; for the man it undoubtedly came from. It felt like it had been _right_ by his ear.

_Oh, no. Sherlock_.

_How_ was he going to explain this to Sarah? He felt the oncoming resignation that his date was about to be scuppered shoot through him.

"What's the matter?" Sarah asked, surprised. She was standing too by now, looking alarmed.  
>"I – listen, this has been nice – <em>really<em>, great, but – I need to leave," He answered, pulling out his wallet and taking out all the cash he could spare if he wanted to be able to get a cab. It barely covered the amount needed to pay for the meal, but he didn't care.

"But – why?" She asked, trying to keep her voice down but obviously shaken and angry.  
>"Something's come up. I need to leave, but I've had a really great time! Obviously, It's not you, it's me, I-"<p>

_Oops_.

She smiled in bitter disbelief, and shook her head; narrowed her eyes. She finished her wine, quickly. He muttered an apology, and left the restaurant, stalking into the damp street once more. It was still thundering down with rain, so loud that he hardly heard the door of the restaurant shut behind him, as he tried to hail a cab to take him . . . _He didn't know where_. He wished in vain that _he_ had Sherlock's ability. Sherlock was very particular with it, and ever so slightly _careless_ and _annoying_. Would it have _killed_ him to give him a location?

"So that's it?" Sarah called to him, from behind. He turned back to her, as the colour of her hair began to darken from the rain, and water and makeup trailed down her face. She looked seriously angry with him. "You're not even going to tell me what's so wrong that you couldn't _possibly_ have finished our date?"  
>"It's Sherlock, he's . . . In a spot of bother," He called back, and she came closer so they didn't have to shout so loud over the heavy rain.<br>"How do you know?" He yelled, throwing her arms out to emphasise the question. She had a point: John cursed himself for not even pretending to look at his phone and fabricating a needy message from his flatmate before making his excuses.  
>"I got – a message," He countered, half-truthfully. He hoped she hadn't noticed the fact he'd neglected his mobile.<br>"But your phone was in your pocket the whole time!" _Damn_.  
>"It's complicated!" He told her exasperatedly.<br>"Are you a telepath?"  
>"I – what . . ."<p>

The curveball felt physical, as if it had hit him in the chest at one hundred miles an hour. He looked her in the eye, and he saw a wave of realisation spread across her face. He must have a lousy poker face, but why would any _sane_ person guess at that, almost immediately?

"No, that's – why would you-" He spluttered.  
>"So <em>he's <em>a telepath, then? – Sherlock?" She called back, her clothes getting progressively wetter as their surreal argument continued.

John was dumbstruck as Sarah hailed a cab effortlessly. He just stared, his mouth agape, as he hurried into the car. He wondered awkwardly whether she _wanted_ him to join her, but her beckoning thankfully cut short his moment of uncertainty. He clambered in behind her.  
>She stared at him expectantly, and indicated the taxi driver. He snapped out of his amazed reverie and unbroken gaze at her to mumble: "Um, Baker Street – for now," He clarified the last part to Sarah alone.<p>

They set off, and he didn't know what to ask first.

"How do – how did-" He paused, collecting himself. So many _questions_! He wondered if his myriad thoughts reflected just a fraction of what it was like to be in Sherlock's head at any given moment – in addition to these, the thoughts of _others_, flitting and flying about like bees around a hive – "What gave us away?"  
>She sighed, and shrugged in a non-committal way that oddly seemed to be befitting of this peculiar situation.<p>

"I had a maternal uncle. He's dead now, but he was a very clever man. A doctor. Always knew how to cheer me up – he was great. I didn't know until I was about five or six that it wasn't normal for adults to think words, and for them to appear on the paper automatically . . . A pretty rubbish power, in the grand scheme of things, but useful – when I found out it even _was_ a power, my mind was blown!" She explained animatedly, turning to face him and gesticulating wildly. He was surprised at her energetic conversation: perhaps he'd found her favourite subject?

"So . . . It runs in your family?" John prompted, fascinated that there were people out there who knew what he was; that she knew people like him, but just didn't bother to make a big fuss about it. No media outlets being called, no police involvement, no capes and tights – just _oh, I've got this crazy uncle, and he can do this thing . . . _

"On the male side, yes. In some families it's the female side, but not the Smiths – my mum's maiden name – and I haven't been gifted, unfortunately . . . So Sherlock's – _telepathic_," She floundered for the word, as smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.  
>"Yes – yes, he is. Pretty useful for a detective," John admitted. He rubbed his eyes.<br>"I never thought I'd find anyone who _actually_ had something like that going on in their gene pool, outside my family," She marvelled, and stared out of the window for a second, sitting back and drinking her new discovery in. "Don't get me wrong, I researched it _endlessly_ – I took an extra genetics module at Uni specifically for the purpose, but I never found anyone who'd even heard of this type of thing. I suppose I might've met someone like my uncle without knowing it, but now – a _telepath _. . ."

John shifted uncomfortably, wondering whether or not to tell her that she'd met not one, but two people of her uncle's persuasion.

"But you must have a pretty strong connection, to be able to hear him from across London?"  
>"I don't know. To be honest, I don't have anything to measure it in comparison with . . . But yeah, I'd say it was pretty strong – Thank you for not freaking out," He added, squeezing her shoulder. She snorted.<br>"Please! . . . It's amazing, seriously – And what about you? Did you get _gifted_?"  
>He liked that word. It made what he was sound less like an awful curse that blighted his existence.<p>

He opened his mouth to answer, but his phone buzzed.  
>"Sherlock!" He exclaimed. Sarah's eyes widened, and she grasped his arm tightly. They exchanged a glance, and she nodded. He answered the call.<p>

"Hello?"  
>"Dr. John H. Watson?" It was Sherlock's voice, but not his own. There was a hint of petulance and ever-so-slight protest. He was being forced to say the words, but he wasn't afraid. He found the entire situation rather pathetic – quite obviously, as well.<br>"If you were aiming for natural speech patterns, you missed," John told them. "I can tell these words aren't Sherlock's,"  
>"Yes, well, they do so <em>love <em>to be dramatic," Sherlock's sarcastic tones drawled. John swore he heard the safety on a gun being clicked off.

Sherlock, you're not me. You'll die. Just, be careful!

Sherlock sighed, audibly annoyed and sceptical.  
>"Alright, alright! Put it away! - Doctor John H. Watson-" He began again.<br>"Dr. Watson will do," John replied coldly. He wasn't playing games with Sherlock's safety, even if Sherlock was.  
>"Dr. Watson. We have spent a lot of time and money on trying to recruit you. Added to this, we have now lost our entire league because of your-" – Sherlock sighed at this point – "<em>Idiotic<em> companion. It is only fair to say now that you are a marked man. You are property of the Black Lotus. Give yourself up within the hour, or suffer the consequences. Your associate will die slowly and painfully, and his death will be on your hands. Do you understand?"  
>". . . I understand," John replied shortly. Sarah's brow furrowed in concern.<br>"The tramway – come alone, and unarmed, or your friend will die. One hour," Sherlock's bored monotone informed him from the other end of the line. A strangled noise . . . The line went dead.

The taxi pulled up outside Baker Street, though John hadn't noticed the journey whatsoever. He was brought back to reality by Sarah squeezing his arm again.  
>"What's going on? Is he alright?"<br>"For now," John told her flatly, and her mouth opened to say something, but she shut it once more, as they left the cab. John paid the driver, and they ascended the steps of 221B through the ever-present rain. Sherlock would probably have told him the correct term for the weather reflecting the mood, and yawned exaggeratedly at how clichéd it was that it should be raining.

As soon as John had opened the door, they began to shuffle out of their wet coats, and John quickly explained the contents of the phone call, though it was painful to repeat the dire situation to Sarah. She was eager to help, though – which was useful, he supposed.  
>"This . . . <em>Gang<em>, have Sherlock. They're all people like – like Sherlock. They say I have to show up at the tramway in an hour, or they'll kill him," He elaborated bluntly.  
>"What do they want?" Sarah asked, perplexed and horrified.<br>"They want me," He responded in a low voice, only serving to confuse her more, but his dark brown eyes bore into hers as he told her, and silenced her. His sincerity scared her; this was _serious_.  
>"Why? – do they . . ." He composed herself, and spoke without faltering, interested only in the cold, hard truth: "Do they want to kill you?"<br>"No, no . . . Something _much _worse,"

Before Sarah could inquire what this was, Mrs. Hudson's door opened, and out came the old lady, dressed in a purple to match her sweet lavender scent. She was beaming, though her brow was creased slightly:  
>"Oh, John, dear! You didn't tell me you were having a dinner party?"<br>John went to reply, and then stopped. Of _all_ the things she could have asked . . .  
>"I – I'm n-"<p>

He caught himself, as a gang of about fifteen or so people appeared behind her front door, each clutching a steaming cup of tea in one of Mrs. Hudson's floral-and-white china cups; each sopping wet from the rain and looking pretty sorry for themselves. He'd never seen any of them before in his life. He decided to show them up anyway: tonight couldn't get any weirder. He decided, though, that Mrs. Hudson truly was a saint for looking after _all_ of them while he was out. He spied several familiar blankets adorning the band of strangers.

"-I mean, I'm not particularly well dressed. Sorry, guys. Come upstairs, all of you!" He replied, and Sarah played along, smiling sweetly as they all trundled upstairs, entering his flat and jostling for space. He looked at Sarah, and her face questioned what was going on, but all he could do was shrug, and retrieve some more towels for the crowd from the airing cupboard.

They were men and women of all races, aged between about sixteen at the youngest to fifty at the eldest. Each had the same smell of decay and sweat about them, but it was muted by the petrichor smell of rain, emanating from the flecks of mud on them. They were thin, most of them, and showed signs of struggles in most cases.

John had a sneaking suspicion as to who they were, even though he'd never met any of them before. A woman pushed herself towards the front – _ah_. _This one_ he recognised:  
>At the forefront, with a cheeky grin and a face that said 'Care for some backup?'<br>"Anthea . . .?"  
>"The very same," She replied mildly, inspecting her nails and changing the colour. Sarah's eyes widened perceptibly, and John spared her a quick smile before he turned back to the pesky MI5 agent.<br>"Who're all these people?" He demanded.

She smiled, and turned to face the crowd, her hand showing each of them in a dramatic, sweeping motion.  
>"Dr. Watson, Dr. Sawyer-" – Of <em>course<em> she knew who Sarah was – "May I introduce you to the gifted league. I thought this the safest place to bring them, for the time being,"

John slumped himself against the wall next to the door, and crossed his arms.  
>". . . Wow," He muttered, shaking his head and widening his eyes. <em>God<em>, he was tired. But his hand was totally still.  
>"You mean, <em>all<em> these people-?" Sarah began.  
>"Are like your Uncle. Yes, Dr. Sawyer," Replied Anthea curtly, looking the other woman up and down in a cursory assessment of her.<br>"How did you know about that?" Sarah snapped, but John intervened. Anthea raised her eyebrows at the other woman, as he quickly summarised:  
>"She works for the British Government. Sherlock's brother," He clarified: "MI5,"<br>"Oh, of _course_ she does," Sarah said scathingly, her tone sarcastic but typically stiff-upper-lipped.

John puffed his cheeks out, and looked at the entire room full of people: a few had ventured into the kitchen in search of food, but had come across only gone off milk and botched experiments of Sherlock's.

"This is . . . " Sarah began honestly, shaking her head and smiling in sheer disbelief, as another wave of what she might have called reality, but didn't have the heart to, washed over her:  
>"<em>This<em> is the weirdest first date I have _ever_ been on,"

Sneering, he stared down the barrel of a loaded gun. He did so hate when they _insisted_ on being boring enough to use guns. No innovation involved; no mystery. That, plus they hadn't even worked out that he was a psychic yet. For a gang who worked with the genetically well endowed, they had an astronomical lack of self-awareness. Ignorance of this calibre could probably be seen from space.  
>Hmm. Perhaps if they weren't in a tramway, in a tunnel, in stormy, cloud-besotted London.<p>

"Your friend has ten minutes, Mr. Holmes," The stout Chinese woman who appeared to be their leader informed him, her gun centimetres from his face – but by coincidence, not design. Really, if they insisted on firearms, they needed to watch where they pointed them. Their only bargaining chip might not work so well if it was missing a substantial amount of grey matter and the back of its skull he thought wryly.

He tested the handcuffs slowly, trying not to draw attention to his hands. He'd made a habit of moving them periodically, pretending to shifting himself to get comfortable: this way, when he eventually made the move to break out, they wouldn't suspect a thing at first – thus, he would have bought himself precious seconds of time.

These were the type he had, as a child, learned how to escape from. Now his hands were larger, it was still a small feat to escape from them – but one he hoped he could manage. The brand wasn't of a high quality, and they'd been foolish enough to lock them behind his back, where they could scarcely see them. But he wouldn't escape. Not yet – and not least because of that area of blackness that was just that _little_ _bit_ blacker than the rest. The Shadow in the dark.

The metal folding chair was very uncomfortable. He'd awoken on it, with the most awful neck cramp, after what he estimated was ten or so minutes. That's when they'd made him do that ever-so-overly-dramatic phone call. He'd actually requested that John be given less time to come and volunteer himself, simply because this chair was so bloody uncomfortable and he was so very _bored_. He crossed his legs, shuffling to gain purchase on the ever-so-slightly slippery material. He sighed: she was _still _looking at him somewhat expectantly, as if for some sort of rise or reaction.

Instead, what she got was a smile: wide-eyed, as disconcerting as possible, closed-lipped; his head cocked to one side. Her smug expression faded slowly, as his eyes followed her for longer and longer, never breaking contact. Sherlock Holmes was good at not blinking.

She turned away, and said something to the Shadow in Chinese. She was asking if he had the entrance ready to cover, once John arrived. Once in here, they planned to block the only exit (the other end of the tunnel that was located behind Sherlock was blocked off and impassable). Sherlock knew as much from staring continuously at it, letting his eyes take the full thirty minutes he'd been sitting still to adjust to the darkness: he saw the wall at the other end, in the distance, after a while.

After the same while, they'd turned him around, to face the entrance: they thought he was figuring out a way to escape through the wall, probably. He couldn't understand them all too well. They were thinking in Chinese. He could gain a notional understanding of their thoughts, but nothing more. Still useful, but nothing too _specific_.

It wasn't for the first time that, with eight minutes left until John would be here, that Sherlock tried to read the Shadow's mind. Every time, he came up short: a shadow has no human thoughts. _Or do they?_ _I doubt it, but then again I doubt that the parameters of the laws of physics are the same when dealing with someone who can literally cease to be human at will._ _He has thoughts. I just can't access them when he's like that._

But he – _it _– came closer. It said nothing; did nothing but move calmly, slowly, towards where he was forced to sit, just watching. He felt cold. Alone . . . Scared? – But _why_?

"What?" He questioned, a little aggressive. Of _course_ it said nothing back. "It's no use trying to intimidate me. I've come close to death countless times. This is one of the poorer attempts for my life," He hissed into the black air. The darkness shrouded him, and he coughed and spluttered, as if it were acrid smoke from a wood burnt fire.

Shan, the general in charge of the operation, turned around from the notes she was making and barked something in Chinese at the Shadow. Sherlock's eyes watered, as his breathing returned to normal, the Shadow temporarily allowing him to live and ceasing the torture. It wasn't unlike simulated drowning.  
>But Sherlock didn't lose his bravado.<p>

"You killed my friend at the museum yesterday, in cold blood. You didn't let him fight back," He said conversationally, but quietly enough for Shan not to hear. "You killed your sister to save your own skin, also in cold blood. She was a very smart woman," He whispered. ". . . Whereas you are a coward, and a dead man, Shadow. If it's not me who gets you, it'll be John . . . You'd better hope it's John, not me," He finished, very soft and gentle towards the end, which only served to add more malice to his words, as his silver eyes shone in the meagre light of the lanterns hanging from the now-empty storage containers.

He noticed from his peripheral vision that the slight patch of saturated darkness had moved behind him, and out of sight, unavailable to see even if he _did_ want to look at it. He stared sincerely with steely resolve into black, and remained in this state for a few seconds; he then turned his head, looking towards the end of the tunnel, and trying to make out a silhouette.

He heard him before he saw him.

Knew you'd turn up.  
>How could I <em>not<em>? I don't want your blood on my hands. It'd stain my clothes.  
>Very <em>drôle. <em>_Now, if you wouldn't mind enacting your heroic rescue. This chair is even less comfortable than it appears.  
>- They have you tied to a chair, then?<br>But of course. No imagination, this lot.  
>Are you hurt?<br>I'm fine.  
>Hmm. You're not a very good damsel in distress, are you?<em>

_Sherlock chuckled despite himself. Shan shot him a dirty look, but he ignored her, deciding to continue to unnerve her with his suddenly, apparently uncalled-for amused behaviour. _

_"What?" She demanded, but he didn't answer. Why bother? She persisted, and he ignored her again: "__What?__" _

_And you're not a very good rescuer.  
>I beg to differ. This is two daring rescues in, what – as many months? The cabbie, remember–<br>If you wouldn't mind – stop being so insufferable and help me. I presume you have a plan?  
>Why would you presume a thing like that?<br>You're joking.  
>Am I?<br>Yes. Don't be an idiot – I can read your mind, if you recall. Plus, you have the worst poker face I have ever seen.  
>But you can't even see me!<br>Just a figure of speech, obviously. Sometimes I wonder who is the most socially inept of the two of us. _

_"What are you laughing at?" Shan demanded, bringing her gun up again to his head, and pushing the muzzle to his forehead so it made a small, circular impression on his ghostly white skin. He rolled his eyes.  
>"Ask him yourself," Muttered Sherlock. <em>

_Alright, alright–! What's her name?  
>Shan. General Shan. <em>

_"Shan!" Bellowed an angry voice from the end of the corridor. The several henchmen either nursing wounds from being attacked by Anthea or Sherlock or busying themselves with something or other jumped in synchrony. Shan jumped, too – even Sherlock was a little alarmed. _

"John Watson! How nice of you to join us," crooned Shan.  
>"Yeah, yeah – enough of the super-villain shit. And it's <em>Doctor Watson<em> to you, if you recall,"

Sherlock smirked in unashamed amusement. He wasn't going to bother hiding it from his captors, if they could even be called that. He shifted his hands, waiting for the opportune moment.

He saw the doctor's silhouette, marching purposefully, his arms swinging by his side in a very uniform manner. _Once a soldier_. . .

"I trust you have come to give yourself up in exchange for your friend's life?" Shan asked, indicating Sherlock with a gesture of her gun. Sherlock rolled his eyes. _Again_. At this rate, he was going to have to switch to sighing, just for a little variation in his _I'm-so-bored _social tropes.  
>"Yeah," John replied quietly. There was still underlying anger in his voice.<p>

I trust this isn't the plan? Giving yourself up?  
>Just shut up and let me know when you're ready to duck.<br>To _duck_ - ?  
>Shh!<p>

Reluctantly, incredulously, Sherlock did just that. He busied himself with the handcuffs: this would take all of thirty seconds, _if that_.

John watched a point behind Sherlock's head, where he could tell the Shadow now resided. The great wisp of inky blackness came forward, by Shan's side, backing her up.  
>"Step this way, then, Dr. Watson," Shan said, as one of her companions opened a storage container for her. She smiled triumphantly, and it turned John's stomach, as he made his way into the dank, stinking container, turning around to face his enemies before they shut the door.<p>

_Now_.

Sherlock threw himself to the ground, free of his bonds, and all of a sudden thought he had gone totally blind. There was a brilliant whiteness that flew above him, like interference with his vision from his own brain . . . No, no – that was an external source of light. Not only that, but – _lightening_. Indoor lightening. _Impossible - at least, improbable . . . !_

From his position, he saw Shan collapse to the floor, dead; her eyes, hollow and lacklustre, shone slightly back at him; her pupils and mouth were triplet 'O' shapes of blackness, forever cemented in shock. She was badly burned, her face blackened and – though it was probably just his mind playing tricks on him, because of all the shouting and blows making noise around him – he thought he could hear it sizzling quietly with the searing heat of a lightning bolt. _Dead_.

John ducked out of the container: the bolt had moved from behind the now-destroyed wall at the end of the tunnel, bounced off his container and onto Shan, eliminating the gang's leader, but also superheating the metal he'd been clutching onto up to white-hot temperatures for a brief moment. That bolt had been more than he'd bargained for when he'd instructed the woman responsible to throw it into the tunnel – hotter, even, than regular lightning.

He gasped with the pain of the burn, but fortunately he knew it wouldn't linger. He'd had worse, he thought, as he looked at his red-raw, partially-blackened hands in the light of a nearby lamp. He couldn't waste any time though: the lightning had been a good way of getting rid of Shan, but the main reason was that the sheer intensity of it would force the Shadow back into physical form.

John peered out, exposing none of himself to the skirmish that was going on outside. The gifted league had poured in through the hole made in the wall by the woman, a housewife named Megan, who'd conjured the lightning bolt that destroyed it, and were engaging the Black Lotus in hand-to-hand combat. If John hadn't been so sure he'd win, he'd never have put them in danger like this: however, the Black Louts' hunger for powerful new members had worked against them: they'd only created a more powerful opposing force for themselves to fight.

Checkmate.

They were well and truly rebelling against their former captors now: knocking them out one by one. It was a festival of psychedelic lights, colours, heat, and myriad powers – he saw Sherlock on the floor, hands still on his head. He was unharmed aside from minor cuts on his face from his fall to the floor, thankfully. He stared up at the Shadow, who was stumbling, blinded by the light he'd just borne the full brunt of: he was _human_, for now! It appeared the light had had a poisoning effect on him, and he'd taken it badly.

But though John had brought his gun, given to him by Sherlock a while ago, his damaged hands fumbled uselessly with it. It hurt his flayed palms to close around the weapon, and he didn't yet even have enough mobility to pull the trigger – let alone_ aim at _the same 'd told the others to leave the Shadow to him, as well – _if he could only heal in time_ - !

He did what he could, knocking out a few of the now seemingly infinite number of Shan's henchmen – more than they'd banked on, at least – and didn't hesitate when slashed in the face several times with sharp knives. _Why was it always the face_? He simply couldn't understand, but sighed in annoyance as he healed, still fighting, his enemies looking at him in fear and horror. He forgot that it hurt.

But still, the Shadow was recovering: he was even beginning to fight back, and John knew he had to do something, _anything_ to get him _now_. But his hands were still inaccurate and clumsy from burn damage – he'd never be able to shoot the guy. He could punch him in the face, but all that'd earn him would be yet _another_ death by suffocation.

Think, _think_!  
>I've been telling you to think for <em>months<em>. No, no – don't start now, just – stand back!

A crack; a yelp of anguish and agony. A loud bang – not the same as Anthea's nondescript, fully-silenced pistol's gunshot – ringing out through the tunnel and reverberating repeatedly. Simultaneously, white light came from the end of the tunnel, and blue flashing behind it. The cavalry had been called: the team had adhered to the plan, then – _first secure Sherlock, and then call the police_. He heard cries to remain still and put his hands in the air, as the last few members of the Black Lotus fled through the wall or were dispatched efficiently by John's ramshackle crew of former captives. John's _soldiers_. They all remained still after a few seconds, making sure to drop weapons if necessary.

Sherlock Holmes stood with his back to the light, in silhouette, still in the same position he'd shot the assassin from. John thought hysterically that he looked like a highwayman: indeed, there was something about a super-powered scuffle in an underground tunnel that had the daring and illegal feel of a robber at a roadside; a guerrilla resistance.

He wondered whether Sherlock had just been waiting so that it looked most dramatic when he finally took out the Shadow – his enemy; the murderer of his only friend (even if only for a short while). He'd stolen his gun from the fallen Shan, and had taken clear aim so that the bullet hadn't been deflected from the walls and into someone else.

He stood there, his coat swishing about him as he smirked, and withdrew the gun. He caught John looking, and even blew the muzzle for comic effect, before discarding the weapon haphazardly to the floor. John laughed, and so did Sherlock.

"So when you said, _he's a bit different_ . . . That _was_ a euphemism, after all?" Sarah piped up, coming from behind John and linking her arm with his. He'd only let her come with them because she'd confided in him that, actually, she was a black-belt in TKD.

The police blundered towards them, tasers held in front of them more in fear than confrontation. They weren't sure what they'd seen from far away, but it couldn't have been _real_ . . . They focussed on casualties, weapons, and herding people into custody en masse – including John, Sarah and Sherlock. John looked for Anthea, but he didn't see her, and he wasn't surprised: she'd probably crept away, utilising her ability to avoid being questioned. He'd never met someone as slippery as her - well, at least not one who had the good of the country at heart.

He sniggered, as he was pulled alongside Sarah, by a police constable looking ecstatic to even be there, and handcuffed for now. He vaguely tuned into the sound of Sherlock protesting at being hauled into custody, asking snidely if they knew who he was.

He finally replied with a shrug, before they were dragged outside and separated: "Well, what can I say? He's just . . . He's _Sherlock_ . . ."

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><p><em><strong>AN: REMEMBER, <span>let me know how dark you'd like the next one to be!<span> Epilogue soon x**_


	10. Epilogue

_**AN: Hello! You've reached B. Sorry I can't come to the phone at the moment, I've lost all ability to speak with any coherence. Leave a review after the beep! - B. **_

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><p>Glass shone light into John's eyes, the watery grey it was reflecting made somehow colder, but all the more glamorous, by the obviously-expensive panes. Totally ignoring his surroundings, Sherlock made a bee-line for the lift, not waiting for John to step off the escalator and jog after him before pressing the button and tapping his feet in an almost comical display of impatience.<p>

Though his face was drawn and serious – and blighted by several healing cuts from their adventures a few days ago at the tramway – John could see the gleam of amusement and schadenfreude in his silver eyes. It radiated, until the seriousness that had been a cancer on his handsome features was near eradicated. John preferred how he was now to the first time they'd stepped into the law firm; he was glad Dimmock had let Sherlock have this one, despite not being strictly on the force. But he owed Sherlock: unpaid, he'd unveiled and taken down a human trafficking ring, and an international gang of 'smugglers' (this was Sherlock and John's official line, and the line of all the former captives, and the police had been more than happy to accept this – especially with a little persuasion not to delve into the matter by Mycroft Holmes).

"Excuse me, sir!" Protested a secretary from behind the counter, standing up in annoyance and strutting over with a haughty look on her face. "You need an appointment to see-"  
>"Will this do it?" Sherlock asked in an innocent tone of voice, and promptly shoved a police warrant in her face. Her superior look – an expression so unpleasant and arrogant as to be a rival to Sherlock's default face when c confronted with those he didn't care much for – dropped off her face like a car over a cliff.<p>

_Oh God. We're finished. _

"Indeed," Sherlock replied darkly, not bothering to hide the triumph in his voice from her, as she quietly shuffled back to her desk, going pale and whispering to her colleagues. John caught up as Sherlock stepped into the lift, barely catching it before the door closed. He panted slightly, and looked up at Sherlock, who pressed the button for the top floor, before holding his hands and the warrant behind his back and remaining demure and reserved for all of . . . Five seconds, if John had counted accurately.

It was John that set him off. John smiled, and shook his head, looking up at his friend, who stared straight ahead. He caught John staring, and looked down at him. He couldn't help but break his resolve and smirk; the smirk turned into a chuckle, to which John couldn't help but laugh. He just couldn't remember the last time Sherlock had _laughed_.

"This . . . Will be fun," Sherlock admitted, answering John's unanswered question.  
>"Well, don't be too harsh," Warned John, thought it was light-hearted: "Just don't do the same as you did to that Shadow bloke, alright?"<p>

Sherlock laughed again, and it sounded like the strings of a cello being plucked at random. He just had a funny laugh – which was probably why he didn't laugh often, not wanting to be embarrassed by it.

I do _not_ have a funny laugh.  
>Whatever! Just, don't hospitalise me over it, okay?<br>For goodness sake, John, I shot _one man!_ You killed the taxi driver, not to mention you've been to war! I don't bring that up every five seconds, do I?  
>Alright, alright!<br>At least we know he won't be escaping any time soon. The pain of that leg'll stop him from changing.  
>Well, you know how being shot is. Terribly distracting.<p>

Sherlock couldn't help himself, as they approached the correct floor, and he giggled again. The lift stopped to let in several bemused pencil-pushers, who all pressed their own buttons. Sherlock rolled his eyes, not wanting to defer his task any longer. He had a score to settle.

. . . I thought you were going to kill him.  
>Well, he <em>did<em> kill you.  
>True enough, but I'm still here!<br>Which explains why I didn't go through with it.  
>'Go through with it' . . . ?<br>If I'm totally honestly, yes, I wanted to kill him. But I can't help but feel that would wreck my chances of working with the police in future, don't you think? We can't all shoot people under the noses of the police and get away with it.

John snorted; several people turned around and looked at him, furrowing their brows and trying to detect exactly what was funny. They promptly exited at the next floor.

We can't giggle, it's a lift! . . . Fine. We're even. Shall we just, call it quits?  
>If you insist, yes. And don't worry, <em>she's<em> just sour because her boyfriend's a serial cheat, and _he's_ just annoyed because his cat threw up on his best shirt this morning. Of _course_ they won't find us funny.  
>That, plus the fact <em>they can't hear us<em>.  
>That too.<p>

Finally, they reached the top floor, and Sherlock's amused expression disappeared all of a sudden, to be replaced with unbroken calm and solemnity. He strode out purposefully, eyes flicking round the office, staring down anyone who decided to take an unwarranted interest in him, and in John.

Again, almost as the crow flies, Sherlock marched to Sebastian Wilkes' office, and knocked once while entering, rather than stopping and waiting. When they entered, the lawyer was on the phone, and his eyes looked annoyed and slightly alarmed when they entered. He signalled 'five minutes' to them, but Sherlock said – without making allowances for the fact Sebastian was on the phone – "I don't think this can wait, actually,"

Sebastian sighed, and mumbled to the person on the end of the line that he'd call him back later.  
>"Really, I wouldn't be so hasty. You usually only get one phone call where you're going,"<br>Sebastian, who was in the middle of a sip of coffee, frowned and froze. He recovered his resolve, and his cold eyes watched Sherlock's hands: he'd spied the warrant. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was happening – and yet still, he insisted on going through banalities as if they were about to go out of fashion:  
>"What's that?"<br>"A warrant. For your arrest, Sebastian,"

Sherlock's eyes near glowed with the haze of revenge: a dish best served cold, as the old cliché went.

Sebastian was doing the maths in his head, visibly. Sherlock's face was stony, and John loitered behind him, folding his arms. Sebastian put two and two together and -= as may have been Sherlock's plan, John suspected – got five.

"It was years ago, Holmes. I doubt you have any evidence that could prove I was there. It'd be your word against mine – a former addict, who was drunk at the time, against a well-respected lawyer. You'll never make it stick," Sebastian said curtly, a tight smile pulling at his lips, and derisive amusement settling into the folds of his face.

Sherlock simply raised his eyebrows, making a face of mock-confusion, and looking totally unfazed.  
>"I wonder what on Earth you're talking about?" Sherlock said in a purposefully-unconvincing voice, making Sebastian go pale in the knowledge that he'd just accidentally confirmed his involvement in Sherlock's assault. ". . . No, my colleague and I are here on the myriad counts of fraud, corruption and perverting the course of justice that you and your firm have perpetrated,"<br>"What?" Spluttered Sebastian, looking rattled and going floury pale.  
>"You see, Sebastian, when we were investigating Van Coon's murder, we came across a safe in his flat that contained some extremely incriminating documents," Sherlock explained, sidling over to the window and taking a cursory look down in ersatz interest. "A series of cover-ups, each of which would be worth many years in prison – and that's just scratching the surface of what we found," He elaborated, laying it on thick as the lawyer began to sweat.<p>

Then, the ace in the hole: "All signed off by you, in the name of your firm," He finished, turning to look Sebastian in the face with a look of hatred.  
>"Thus . . . The warrant for your arrest. Detective Inspector Dimmock will be around shortly to take you into custody,"<br>"But . . . This is-" Sebastian floundered, but Sherlock and John were already striding out of the office, their task performed and their victory and revenge enacted.  
>"Oh, and the break in?" Sherlock added, poking his head back into the office with a sly grin. "Don't worry about that. As long as you nail a board across the windows, no shadows will get it. Afternoon!" He left it at that, catching up with John, as they waited in amiable silence for the lift. Sherlock's breathing seemed a little erratic to John, who was very impressed:<br>"That was . . . Brilliant," He smirked.  
>Sherlock agreed, without a hint of modesty in the matter; his sly smile turning into a full-blown grin: "Wasn't it just?"<p>

Ruby velvet and about 5x3 inches in size, the soft fabric only interrupted by a neat pressed-in seam where it would open with a little persuasion. It was obvious what the thing _was_, but John still didn't understand _what it was_, and why it was on their kitchen table without any explanation when they got back from the law firm.

"Sherlock, what . . . ?" John asked quietly, as a little voice in his head whispered at him, snagging at his consciousness and making him dare to suspect what it might be. He pored at the box: quite heavy, for what it was; the _size_ it was. So it contained something heavy, perhaps?

"Oh, that?" Sherlock said casually. He was unwrapping himself from his scarf, and beginning to unbutton his coat. His nonchalance made John wary. "Just, um . . ." He didn't finish.

John had opened the box, and was gaping at the contents:  
>"Sherlock, how – where did you get this?" He asked calmly, looking from the contents to his friend's sheepish face and back again. Sherlock began to look amused.<p>

It was a military medal for valour.

"I just . . . I read your file, obviously – oh, incidentally, Mycroft has it now, so don't worry. Actually, he's the one who procured _that_ for me. I just thought, well – you _did_ save the lives of several men, at the expense of being shot. You were owed some form of commendation, but didn't receive it because of . . . Well, I just thought-"

Yet again, he didn't finish. He hadn't anticipated the hug, which knocked the air out of him. John clapping him on the back felt strange and unfamiliar, and he was rigid with awkwardness. He just sort of, patted John's shoulder, unsure of what to do with his hands.

"Thank you," John told him, looking him earnestly in the eyes. Sherlock detected a few tears in John's eyes, but he thought better of mentioning them, and removed his coat. He usually wouldn't think twice about berating, insulting, or annoying his flatmate, but when it came to things to do with the war . . . He didn't have the inclination. This felt strange, in itself.

"Now," John began, turning to the medal again and eyeing it once more. He then looked up at Sherlock, and sighed in false-annoyance. "Just _how_ am I supposed to write up _this _case?"

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><p><em><strong>So, did you like it? A Scandal in Belgravia, I mean. But also the above. Did you like the above?<strong>_

_**. . . Want to see some more? The prologue to the next one is now out. The story's called The Adventure of the Idle Hands (it'll be on my profile, you know how silly this thing is with links) and though the prologue's quite short, it's all you're getting for the moment. You know, what with lack of being able to think straight and exams and things! **_

**_Thanks for all your help and advice with the darkness of the next one, folks! Two thirds of reviewers (out of three O.o) seemed quite keen on a darker plotline, while one said it was okay as-is, but they wouldn't mind. You can still make your opinion known! _**

**_Thanks a lot for sticking with me and the story! - B. _**


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